James Hardie, a leading manufacturer of cement composite products, is making a strategic entry into the Nordic market. The company is to implement a range of tried and tested distributor and installer programmes throughout the Nordic countries, with the aim of taking a major portion of the brick and sidings market within three years.

Wärtsilä Corporation has enhanced its Auxpac range of medium-speed heavy fuel oil (HFO) marine generating sets with features that reduce costs, and simplify installation.

GWS Systems is known as a pioneer in the production of industrial furnishings. The company has decided to invest in the future and refocus its product strategy on solutions for customers. “The problem is the same in all domains: the aim is to make machines run with the same settings for as long as possible, to increase productivity. The same is true in our industry. Our target is to create universal modules and thus maximize the usage rate,” says Product Manager Mika Suoja. “This will help us comply with the market move towards more and more tailor-made solutions.”

With more than 20 years of market domination in Australia and the US, James Hardie is entering the European markets with its innovative products made of cement composite. These sidings are made to last longer, requiring only a minimum of maintenance. This global enterprise has become known in many European countries and is now looking for partners in Finland and the other Nordic countries. The local installers will be offered all necessary training and support – an entirely new business and marketing concept.

Under an agreement signed today, Dansk Eternit, Denmark's leading manufacturer of cement composites, will market and distribute the best- selling HardiPlank cement sidings from manufacturer James Hardie.

Ground and polished concrete floors have been developed into a global market worth billions which is continuing to grow, particularly in the United States and Australia. A limiting factor in this expansion has been the problem of handling the large volumes of grinding dust. Grinding dust which, in addition, often contains particles hazardous to health. The Swedish company, Dustcontrol, has now solved these problems with a new concept and two newly developed construction dust collectors which deal efficiently with large quantities of dust. The risk of lung diseases is also greatly reduced thanks to special pre-separators and advanced filter technology.

PAF, a gaming company based in the Aland Islands, is the first in the world to launch an interactive mobile money game. Experts in the field believe that in the future it is precisely mobile gaming which will surge to be the major digital gaming industry. - We believe we are the first in the world to bring an interactive mobile money game to the market, says Stefan Pettersson, PAF’s business development manager and head of digital games. The new mobile game is called Joker Poker. The game was developed by EGET, a Finnish provider of digital game solutions.

FASEC in Scandinavia has created a new approach to building façade design that offers significant cost and design benefits to the building industry. The company believes that its concept has considerable growth potential world-wide.

An expanded range and a focus on strengthening its business through international collaboration are supporting Stora Enso's strong growth in graphical boards. The use of the company's Aurocard board for the covers of IKEA's catalogues is a powerful example of this increasing market. This year 132 million IKEA catalogues have been printed and are forecast to rise by tens of millions within a few years. 

Popularity of snack food is challenging the packaging industry. New types of packs are needed to attract busy consumers. The Langnese-Iglo Micro-Baguette launched on the German market this spring is an excellent example of the new trend in smart packaging, where technology and design go hand in hand. The package won first prize in the TIDA 2003, Trayforma International Design Award competition organised by Stora Enso.