Orange,
Thales and the Caisse Des Dépôts acting for the French State have teamed up to
create a company with a total capital of €225 million. Indutrial partners
will own 66.6% of the capital (initially distributed as 44.4% for Orange and 22.2% for
Thales, the company being open to investment from other industry players), and
33.3% for the Caisse des Dépots. The transaction will be submitted for approval
by European competition authorities.
The company
will sell a range of “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) offers, in other
words, it will provide processing, storage and bandwidth capacity on demand for
companies and administrations, as well as for the IT sector (software and
application publishers, SSII, etc.). The company’s software will be developed
using open source, code, encouraging openness, interoperability and
standardisation, and will be protected by high security levels. This open
approach will also foster the creation of an ecosystem of innovative developers
and integrators, and will benefit the entire economy in France and across Europe.
This industrial cloud computing initiative will
place France and Europe in a strong position on a booming market, that is, currently
dominated by major US companies. The French State’s subsidies, via the “National
Fund for Digital Society” (Fonds national pour la Société numérique), set up by
the “Investments for the Future” program, have made it possible to seize the
market’s current potential for growth, which should be addressed with several
European initiatives. The project also unites France’s fragmented IT ecosystem
and provides an incentive for other players to develop the market further.
Orange and
Thales’s complementary expertise will address the needs of companies and
administrations – in terms of security, end-to-end quality of service, data traceability
and confidentiality – via a reliable infrastructure. This major project, which is
expected to create 1,000 jobs in France, is ready for launch.
Initial revenue has been secured by demand from the two companies; other large
European IT companies have also shown interest in joining the project.
“The project we are undertaking with Thales and the Caisse des Dépôts will
encourage the French and European IT ecosystem, as well as companies and
administrations, to take advantage of the major opportunities offered by cloud
computing. We are pleased to provide our expertise as a global telecoms
operator and IT infrastructure integrator,” explains Vivek Badrinath, CEO of Orange
Business Services. “Andromède also
provides Orange
with additional large-scale industrial infrastructure, which will add to the
cloud services we already offer.”
“We are proud to be contributing our expertise in information
security to this major undertaking,” says Pascale
Sourisse, SVP of Thales in charge of Defence & Security C4I Systems.
“Thales plays a leading role on the market based on its technological expertise
in both civil and military fields, providing the solutions with high levels of
security. Cloud computing plays an increasingly central role in the critical
information systems of our civil and military clients. Andromède provides us
with a trusted and secure infrastructure to serve them.”