The case of these nuggets is not isolated

This is a hemorrhage. Or rather a true RAID. PolySpace Technologies, RealViz, Let it Wave: the names of these software publishers say no doubt to the general public, but their history deserves to be known. All three have in common to be born in the brain of high-level researchers - the first two are "off spin" l'Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (Inria), the third came to the X - and to be within them, in the absence of large battalions of employees and ready to go to the niche trade unioniststechnologies extremely sharp, even unique in the world. And all three were purchase by us companies.

The case of these nuggets is not isolated. Like them, many of our most promising young shoots chose to lean to a foreign company, often in recent years Anglo-Saxon. Since the purchase in 2004 of Kelkoo - another "Inria Baby" - by Yahoo! (which since then resold to an investment fund), these acquisitions of control even multiplied, testifying to the vitality of the global technology market. That this market exists and obeys the law of supply and demand, person is to object. The problem is that, with regard to the France, the balance of entries and exits leaning heavily to one side.

SMEs are of course not only regularly under foreign flags. The successive waves of concentration also carries larger companies, such as Business Objects-l' one of our very rare national champions - bought by the giant SAP in fall 2007, GL Trade by SunGard in 2008, or even Ilog by IBM at the end of that same year. But, to an elephant falls, dozens of gazelles that end each year in the stomach of the great beasts of global computing. The Truffle Capital company, which publishes a ranking of the 100 first French software publishers, observed these movements with a magnifying glass. Nothing that limiting this Top 100 - eliminating de facto of the radar screen good number of start-up-, the year 2007 saw disappear from the list, on the basis of transnational takeovers, 7 editors; 4 suffered the same fate in 2008 and 2 last year. The French industrial fabric in feel. "We establish each year a ranking of European regions in software." Ile-de-France is 2nd behind Hesse, true Silicon Valley of Europe. "But she lost in both years (2008-2009), in terms of control over the headquarters, some 1.4 billion euros of turnover, or the total weight of the 4th region," explains, appalled, Bernard - Louis Roques, Truffle Capital.

"Start" to "up".

Almost always, these redemptions unnoticed and leave indifferent political class. "Even the largest of them, that of Business Objects by SAP, has received no response of public decision makers, those who had were ignited two years earlier when the noise had run rooms market that PepsiCo wanted to launch a takeover bid on Danone", regrets Loïc Rivière, General delegate of the French Association of software (Afdel). All the more anomalous silence that technologies developed by some of these publishers are highly sensitive. Director of the laboratory of computer science at the Ecole normale supérieure of the rue d'ulm and former Berkeley, Jean Vuillemin is convinced: there is a deliberate of Americans do not let a foreign competitor them shade. The computer landerneau has not forgotten the case of Gemplus, the small company in Gémenos become in a decade, at the turn of the century, the world leader in the smart card. Many observers were then questioned on the deep-seated reasons which had led Fund Texas Pacific Group to enter the capital. and hypothetical links to Alex Mandl, appointed shortly after the standing place of Founder Marc Lassus, with the CIA.

Optimists point out that the most innovative greed by our start-up proves that the homeland of Roland Moreno (smart card), Louis Monier (AltaVista, the ancestor of Google) and Jean-Marie Hullot (iPhone) remains always as inventive. Gérard Berry, a recognized scientist - it is to date the only computer scientist to give a course at the College of France-, however do not share this reassuring vision of things. "The France perhaps has no particular problem with the"start", but it was indeed with the"up"."

Allègre Act of 1999, it has certainly allowed researchers to file patents and create their society. But to share some commendable initiatives at Inria or x, although little is done to help them in their efforts and to prepare them for the difficulties faced by a day or the other all contractors. These difficulties are greater in France than elsewhere, and in particular to the United States. An internal market more limited has added the absence of real coup de pouce "large accounts", public or private. Across the Atlantic, the Small Business Act, which reserves a part of the large tender calls for American SMEs and date of 1953, is deeply rooted in the practice. The France, it was expected 2005 to develop a similar text, the SME Pact. And yet this similarity is apparent since the Covenant is based entirely on volunteer and has therefore step the force of law.

Towards a culture of venture capital

The question of funding is not less difficult than that of the narrowness of the opportunities. To stay in the race of innovation, the computer start-up must invest in the low word each year 15 to 20 of their turnover in R & D. Once reached a certain weight, it becomes almost impossible to maintain this pace without bringing fresh money: the gazelles is faltering. Is usually at this time comes the second fundraising, often more sensitive than the first, because it is more to obtain a repayable advance of Oseo but convince private donors. But they are not Legion, especially when it comes to funding the intangible. The recent law 2007 Tepa, which allows private individuals eligible to the ISF to ease the addition by investing in innovative companies, be the catalyst to disseminate in France a real culture of venture capital similar to that which exists in the United States It is much too early to say.

In these conditions, it is understandable why start-up patterns are almost always forced to sell after a few years. The other question: why is - if often a foreign company The first reason is simple: because of the weakness of its software, the hexagon industry lack of groups with kidneys strong enough to serve as "Consolidators". Only French editor to exceed 1 billion euros of turnover, Dassault Systèmes, which weighs only 32 of the hexagonal Top 100 and distance far the number two, made the majority of shopping... in the United States! Bernard Charlès society did not signed the SME Pact in May 2008. And it has actively contributed to the creation, there are five years of the Afdel, came a gap shouting in the landscape of professional organizations.

The second reason, more difficult to identify, is also more fundamental. It is the lack of mixing between leaders of major groups, young entrepreneurs, researchers and venture capitalists. Much has been done in recent years to bring closer them - through competitiveness clusters, including-, but attitudes did not evolving at the same pace that texts, these worlds if separated long do not yet form a single ecosystem, comparable to that which saw born Google on the West Coast American. And always expected the French Google.