New software institute will focus on commercialization

Sony Ericsson and Lund University establish an institute in Lund to work with the commercialization of research results within software development. The CEO will be Sten Minör who currently is the Software Manager at Sony Ericsson.

The official name of the new initiative between private business and academia is Software Innovation and Engineering Institute, and its primary purpose is to make more of the research of software commercially sustainable and successful. The university is going to contribute with staff for testing and assessment of products, and the idea is for research projects at the university or at a company should be utilized at other companies later on.

Sten Minör says to the newsletter Rapidus:
- We have gained support from Sony Ericsson and SEK 500,000 from the University of Lund. Altogether we expect to take in SEK 2.5 mill (approx. € 258,000) to finance the first year.

He leaves is job as Software Manager at Sony Ericsson to become CEO of the new institute, and he is going to spend the next six months planning the organization together with chairman Mats Lindoff. Mats Lindoff was previously Technical Director at Sony Ericsson, but is now turning into full-time venture capitalist. To Rapidus, Mats Lindoff comments on an ongoing debate in Sweden regarding research funding:

- Software is central to Swedish industry. Car manufacturers can place 70-80% of their research budgets on software. But when pursuing funding for research it seems our government is more interested in supporting the building of hardware, he says.

Software Innovation and Engineering Institute will be owned by Lund University's newly established holding company, Luab. The universities in Malmö, Blekinge Region and Halmstad also participate in the project.

Source: Elektronik Tidningen and Rapidus