I am very proud to announce you that we created officially and legally this morning, on December 23, 2005, the ecenter solutions, a new company of the Helvetia Patria Group, located in Zurich – Switzerland, as a corporation (in German: Aktiengesellschaft / AG).

I would like to share with you this very very perticular and exciting day for me, and this, one day before Christmas. Wow, what a marvelous gift :-)

Some of you already know that for a while, I have started a spin-off process of the Business Unit I am responsible for – the so-called eCenter – within the Helvetia Patria Group, for about 13 months now, exactly on November 18, 2004.

Thirteen months…..of ups and downs, of deep doubts, of tough political games, of incredible challenges for bringing mentally the daily works and the spin-off process further and at the same time, of slepless nights. I have thought I know my motivation drivers well before this process, umh, it is clearer now, I can tell you ;-)

All this completely crazy and unbeliveable spin-off process was *only* possible because I had the support of:

• Nick who joined us in February this year, for realizing this process with me and without knowing if it will work or not. *Lot* of respect, *lot* of humility from my side, such a nice and smart guy. Without Nick, no spin-off.
• The great ecenter team with Thomas, Bojan, Laurent, Oli, Rolf, Peter, Constantin, and specially, Philippe and Lorenz, our “pillars”. Without them, no spin-off.
• Our three internal Executive sponsors by Helvetia Patria. Hey, without them too, no spin-off.
• My great wife and son, who had such a great comprehension for my professional vision. I was *so* deeply trapped in this process, night and day. Without familly, no spin-off.

Warm thanks to *all* of you who are now supporting us and following us in this new exciting journey.

So, how to have a better start?

• A great experienced and nice team, super motivated :-) FIRST WHO, THEN WHAT
• An innovative software product, already very mature, and able to solve some painful business issues :-)
• Great references with very good business cases :-)
• Some very exciting projects with our “historical” customer for the next months :-)
• A sales funnel before having starting :-)
• A first (small but with a lot of potential) contract before having started :-)
• Some very promising partnerships with big players in (advanced) discussions :-)

And some very tough but interesting remaining strategic issues which have to be solved in the coming months……

Am I really the CEO of this company? Too great to be true. Or, in other words, one of my dream is becoming true.

The next months will be very exciting, no doubt. Also no restful time planned!

Nick and myself at the end of the first (informal) Board of Directors meeting