We will periodically spotlight an area of the world where Coolmaps Components Club members have set up web
design businesses and market themselves on the webbies.coolmaps.com locator.
This week we look at Germany where Fusion has become a remarkably popular tool. You can link to
the sites of our German Webbies members by clicking on the map above, or by choosing the German
flag on the coolmaps.com Webbies site, which will bring you to a listing of all German Webbies members.
Right after the United States, Germany is the second important web-market in the world. Just last month, the 4th million top level-domain .de was registered.
Two years ago Germany just had less than 1 million German URLs. Thirty percent of all households
have online connections
However, it is still expensive to get online. One reason for that is the lack of flat rate plans.
And, this doesn't seem to be improving - German Telecom recently cancelled their flat-rate.
Good news is the DSL-technology is on its way and should be finished countrywide within this year.
Another obstacle Germany must overcome is attitudes toward security.
Currently, lots of orders and rules are making things expensive.
Germany is home to many Coolmaps Components Club members, including four who are found on our Webbies web developer locator.
WeLcom Studios
WeLcom Studios is a web-design firm that develops sites for small to medium-sized businesses. They offer
webspace, top-level-domains and they also have a small studio which produces jingles. One of their major sites is magnuna, a growing human resource agency.
They are currently using Fusion and NAS 2000 to develop an intranet for a large company. They have created over 4,000 structured pages and an additional 1,000 pages of an encoded english-spoken extranet for the company's worldwide communications.
WeLcom's tool of choice is Fusion because they like the design options and the fact that coolmaps.com offers such interesting add-ons that make it quite easy to generate complex, interesting and good-looking sites.
WeLcom Studios is a member of the "Multimedia House Karlsruhe", a group of start-ups that work closely together for mutual success. They are part of the largest NetObjects community in Germany, the largest German Forum and the largest German NOF support site. They also offer NOF-trainings and webmaster education in cooperation with a large institute in Heidelberg, Germany.
Sokom Internetprojekte GmbH
The focus of SOKOM Internetprojekte GmbH, located in Cologne is Internet/Intranet projects. They assist enterprise, free-lancers and non-profits in the whole process of web project development, from the initial
conception to programming to maintenance, and training and consulting all along the way (by Certified NetObjects trainers). Their specialities
include database integration, eShops, eLearning systems, and netcommunity
solutions. They have a lot of experience in international cooperation and
project management.
Steffi Engert of Sokom states "The German web-community is as diversified and lively as any. NetObjects has a growing user base, especially since deals with some of the major web-space providers include bundles with NetObjects Fusion v4 and v5."
Internet & Co Web Design
Internet & Co Web Design is a web-design firm that develops sites for small
to medium-sized businesses. Since their first day of business they have
developed all websites with NetObjects Fusion. Fusion was the reason to
start the business. An example of one of the sites they designed is JuergenHoeller.com, a famous motivation coach in Germany.
