Zurich, 7th of April 2001

Version 1.2, English

Version 1.2, German

Let's peek over the shoulder of a CEO in the not-too-distant future as he views his computer monitor. A typical e-mail arrives from the VFO (Virtual Financial Officer) telling the CEO which invoices are to be sent, which payments have been carried out and indicating the company's current bank account balance. Another e-mail from the VEO (Virtual Executive Officer) assigns the CEO his duties for the day: check the employee work schedule, a list of telephone calls to be made, offers to be written, everything that is pending. Finally, in a third e-mail, the VOO (Virtual Operation Officer) discusses the difficult situation regarding Open Code: "Basically, anyone who works on or reworks our program code, can take over in entirety without us knowing it, and can further develop and market it without us. The following prices must be established and implemented ..." At the end of the day, the physical CEO logs out of his virtual holding company. He is Henning Timcke, Chief Executive of Werft22, in Baden, Switzerland since 1997.

Photographer: Lukas Obrist

Henning Timcke - Werft22 CEO

"After so many dot.coms developed into financial dot.bombs and the subsequent market reaction, effective controlling has become vital even for a small company such as ours. In the past year we realized that long-term survival was infeasible with our present manual system of recording expenses and services provided combined with the financial burden of an accounting firm. Present procedures were too time-consuming and cumbersome, too expensive, and furthermore, our need for continual financial overview was not being met by the traditional annual balance sheet generated for tax purposes. To maintain our (creative) freedom, we made learning to maintain our company's economic processes autonomously a priority.

We began looking carefully into the administrative aspects of a creative production company last year. This analysis of the organizational and economic aspects of artistic activities lead to development of the XBone™ architecture. The technological basis we used is: LocalBone®-Server SGI 1100, Debian GNU/Linux, Kernel Werft22. Upon this foundation we are developing a company-wide operational software comparable to enables the capabilities and development potential of SAP.

XBone™ architecture is our internal name for a series of programs, databases, structured queries and their presence on the Internet. Design aspects have taken a back seat for the time being, freeing us to concentrate on the virtual automation of administrative processes."

The subatomic company

We call the philosophical framework of the business experiences gathered by Werft22 the subatomic company. A new concept has arisen from a conscious confrontation with economic reality and has been greeted with interest: The language agency, text control ag, in Zurich (www.textcontrol.ch) is currently implementing and restructuring itself along the lines of this new idea.

Text control is donning the structure of a holding company in virtual space, what we call a "volding" (Virtual Holding = Volding). All volding companies contribute to the operation and success of the volding as whole, providing their services to all companies within the volding. The following companies belong to text control's volding, called VOLDING tc:

human resources control

Recruits, maintains, supervises and coaches company employees.

market transfer

Cultivates and provides information to customers, and issues offers.

intellectual property control

Localizes, documents and maintains intellectual property.

added value control

Constantly accompanies and inspects production processes, takes appropriate measures.

fact control

Coordinates and handles assignments, generates invoice drafts, prepares invoices for printing and channels creditors.

net control

Maintains, develops and creates the IT infrastructure and company network.

dox control

Maintains, develops and operates archives.

base control

Records, updates and maintains the database contents.

text control

Corrects and edits texts, takes on naming, creation and corporate language assignments.

next control

Researches and develops new business fields.

supply control

Coordinates and monitors purchasing and suppliers.

finance control

Creates and maintains account plans, takes on invoicing, reminding and bookkeeping tasks.

matrix transfer

Coordinates, develops and transmits the terminology, navigation, communication and interaction infrastructure that connects the entire volding.

synergy control

Recognizes, communicates and develops potential synergies within the volding.

VOLDING tc roles

To enable each company to function as an autonomous unit and to efficiently interact with customer structures, all VOLDING tc companies are assigned roles. These roles were distributed among current VOLDING tc company employees, although care was taken to avoid assigning any individual more than four roles.

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CFO Chief Financial Officer

CHRO Chief Human Resource Officer

CMO Chief Marketing Officer

CMO Chief Sales Officer

CTO Chief Technology Officer

CIO Chief Information Officer

E Employee

FL Freelance

Management roles (from CEO to CIO) bear responsibilities for work and interaction processes and thus are provided with a substitute function, which distinguishes them from staff roles.

Income and expense structures

To us, a business process consists of a series of actions performed input which creates output that is valued by the customer.

All VOLDING tc companies will have identical income and expense structures, allowing for varying functions. Access to these functions is determined by role and function. Individual security elements (classically: user name and password) regulate employee access to relevant data. This facilitates automated interaction between VOLDING tc companies. Business processes can thus directly interact in virtual space in a way that can be reproduced and documented.

Current status

The XBone™ architecture can perform the following as of 7th of April 2001:

1. address administration

2. creditor management

3. accounts receivable management

4. invoicing

5. bookkeeping

6. services portfolio

7. product catalogue

8. personel administration

9. monthly planning

10. time recording

11. salary bookkeeping

All vital information is to be distributed per e-mail. Participating employees have direct access to the joint administration environment from any Internet-connected computer. XBone™ currently processes financial transactions through the "Yellownet" (Swiss Postal Finance system). Payment releases are automatically initiated over the network, invoicing occurs with encoded pay-in slips. Code line generation and precision print-outs will also be performed by the XBone™ architecture. Received payments are automatically compared with the invoices sent, booked and accounted upon receipt.

Outlook

We are currently considering whether we want to publish the Xbone™ source code - and if so, in which form. Is it purely a question of cost? Which resources (time, money, know-how) must be guaranteed to ensure that the Xbone™ architecture has the sustainability needed to exist on the market in a way that provides shareholder value?

To discuss such questions, on 8 April 2001, we will open a mailing list dedicated to the subject "Open Source - Open Income?" Each fortnight we will stream live interviews (Real System G2 iQ, Windows Media) with Xbone™ customers and our developer team to discuss relevant input from the mailing list.

At the website http://volding.werft22.net we provide Xbone™ development progress reports and will announce the exact interview dates, plus provide additional details about the VOLDING tc project.

Henning Timcke