Marco Foellmer is President and Co-Founder of ebf GmbH in Cologne, Germany (
http://www.ebf.de). He is an IBM Certified Professional for Lotus and Tivoli. He has more than 20 years of experience in solution design and architecture, as well as in system consulting and integration. He has in-depth knowledge of the banking and insurance industries and in operation of data processing centers. Marco has successfully managed various projects in which he was involved in the design and architecture of a large-scale Lotus Messaging infrastructure and tight integration with Lotus products and LDAP, SAP, and DB2. Since the beginning of iNotes (now Domino Web Access), he has worked very closely with Lotus Development.
ebf is a software and technology consulting firm that serves its customers from its main office and centre of expertise in the heart of Cologne. ebf’s customers are located all over Germany and they include small to mediums sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as major multinational corporations.
ebf’s expertise is in the following three main areas:
1. System Integration & Consulting
ebf is one of the leading service providers for the implementation of the most innovative, cutting-edge technologies, e.g.:
• IBM Lotus Software in complex Domino environments (for up to 125,000 users)
• BlackBerry Infrastructure, Database Integartion and Hosting Services
• VoIP
By implementing these and other state-of-the art technologies, EBF has enabled many of its clients to better leverage existing resources and capabilities and hence, to gain a competitive advantage.
ebf also provides strategic IT consulting as well as mainstream services such as administration of company IT networks for up to 125,000 users on WIN32/Intel, Linux, AIX and Solaris, OS/2, HP-UX and other platforms.
2. Independent Software Vending
ebf develops software applications for Domino environments, complementing and combining Lotus and IBM standard software. It does this by designing customer-specific, “one-off” solutions and by customising existing ones. Its most successful application, the “ebf.revisor” for instance, helps its clients to watch modifications on Lotus Notes Databases directly on the Domino server. It watches on API Level and stores the information about access and modification in a secured and encrypted database in accordance with audit requirements.
3. IBM solutions reselling
ebf helps its clients to optimise their IT resources, typically saving them 10-50% of their annual software budgets. This is done through a structured process that reviews a client’s existing portfolio of software applications and uncovering areas where cost savings can be realised through the bundling of software licences and the use of ASP hosting services.
Typical client engagements draw from all three areas of expertise but often, ebf also provides services that are tailored to its customers’ specific needs within one of these three areas.
ebf’s clients come from all sorts of sectors and industries and since its foundation in 1994 the company has experienced dramatic growth and enormous success. EBF now employs 30 full-time consultants. It has developed a unique expertise in the service sector, in particular in financial services (banking and insurance), Telecommunications and Advertising.
Solutions and Services
• System Integration & Consulting
• ebf.migration toolkit
• ebf.integration service für BlackBerry
• ebf.revisor
• Independent Software Vending
• ebf.connector for BlackBerry (SAP. Lotus, Microsoft Exchange Public Folders
ebf fact and figures
Founded in 1994 by Marco Föllmer and Markus Adolph
Run by owners
Continuous growth
30 staff members
26 certified professionals
Know how
7 OBMG certified consultants
20 BlackBerry certified consultants
50 man years Microsoft Exchange Migration to Lotus Notes
80 man years BlackBerry experience
95 man years OBMG experience
300 man years Lotus Notes experience
8 IBM Redbooks at IBM Software Lab, Boston, USA
Ongoing success
500 active customers
50.000 BlackBerry devices in more than 80 organisations activated
750.000 end users in more than 200 organisations supported
