10 years itCampus

"Ten years later itCampus evolved into an innovative software producer with international links to research and science instituitions."

Ten years ago, when the world stood at the door of the 21st century, it could already be foreseen that mankind was at the cusp of turning into an information and communication society. Information and communication technologies  developed at an increasing pace. Hardware and network capacity exceeded all anticipations. The great innovation were expected from computer-based man-machine-systems. At the same time, first bottlenecks in the development of hightech-software began to show.

As a result the education of highly qualified computer scientist, mathematicians and engineers played an important role. Hence, approximately 80 students finished their studies in the field of business computing at the universities of Halle and Leipzig, at the time. Unfortunately, only a few of those graduates stayed in the region or in Germany at all. Consequently, there weren't enough young acadamics to develop solutions for highly complex tasks and innovative products as well as to establish new knowledge-based jobs - despite the academic education.

For this reason, in 1999, eight excellent graduates of the universities of Halle and Leipzig joined forces with their professor and established itCampus Software and Systems House GmbH under the guidance of Institute of Corporate Research and Corporate Management (IFU) at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.

Ten years later itCampus evolved into an innovative software producer with international links to research and science. Today itCampus has three office sites in Germany and five subsidiaries all over Europe. itCampus leads the way in the European communication and software solution market. Nevertheless, it is difficult to finance the entry to the world market internally. Therefore it is both a great honour and opportunity for itCampus, that Software AG Darmstadt decided to takea 51% share of itCampus at CeBIT 2009. The world's second largest software house realised itCampus potential and chose it as an innovative platform for the global company count 4.000 staff.

Software AG's Chief Executive Officer Karl-Heinz Streibich reasoned his decission as follows: "As a 'Think Tank' itCampus and its 120 employees will especially strengthen Software AG’s development capacity in the field of process automation. We are investing in minds and knowledge. Joining forces with itCampus will boost our process optimisation competence. Especially in times of an economic crisis, process efficiency booms. Our investment in itCampus with its strong focus of research is a good sign for Germany as location for software development. " 

The last ten years have been an important practical test for the young team. I sincerely thank the management and all employees for their dedicated input and their support in building up the internationally successful company.

I truely hope that the cooperation with Software AG will yield the fruit we are all hoping for, that the innovatiove jobs created in our region will be maintained, thrive and prosper. I wish the company and all its employees continued successful work for the good of the information and communication society in Germany.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Lassmann
Founder itCampus Software and Systems House GmbH,
Chairman of itCampus' Scientific Advisory Board