On 25 January, the FFII Esoma Working Group signs the Esoma statutes of association and creates Esoma asbl.
Esoma General Secretary Pieter Hintjens says: "this is a great step. We finally have an association that can represent the independent software market properly. Most of the classic trade associations just don't speak for the market any more; they've been taken over by a few large software firms."
Hintjens points out that Esoma is not only for small-to-medium IT firms, but for all organisations that depend on a competitive software market for their growth and stability. "When a software patent or proprietary standard increases costs and limits choices, it's the IT user who pays first. So Esoma brings together firms from both sides of the market - supply and demand - to make sure their needs are properly expressed in Brussels."