The recent boom in data transmission and storage capacity has given rise to an increase in Cloud computing in France — a sector that has been given the backing of the government’s National Investment Program. This market is set to surpass the €2 billion mark for France in 2011, and may make up more than 6% of the French software and IT-services industry in 2012. “France is a growth market for high-tech and innovative companies, particularly in the Cloud-computing sector, where the leading players are already here [in France], doing business,” points out David Appia, Chairman & CEO of the Invest in France Agency (IFA). In 2010, revenue from the global market for Cloud-computing services totalled US$68.3 billion while, in Europe, the cloud computing market surged 20% and is predicted to account for almost 15% of the European software and IT-services market by 2015. The French market, which continues to grow strongly, was worth €1.85 billion in 2010, €672 million of which was generated by SMEs. This market is set to exceed €2 billion in 2011 and may account for more than 6% of the French software and IT-services market by the end of 2012. (This estimate has been made by Nexima, a French marketing company). The recent success in Cloud computing has stemmed from the increase in data transmission and storage-capacity usage. Calculations and data are scattered in a universe that is no longer directly accessible to clients who, instead, buy processing capacity in the same way that one might buy electricity.  Three levels of offerings are available with respect to Cloud-computing services:  a client may go for an externally hosted IT infrastructure, i.e. Infrastructure as a Service (or IaaS ); for ready-to-use environments, i.e. Platform as a Service (or PaaS ); or, finally, for standardised shared applications sold as services, i.e. Software as a Service (or SaaS ). In 2011, the French Government issued an initial call for projects dedicated to R&D in Cloud computing, as part of its National Investment Program. The Association Française des Editeurs de Logiciels (or AFDEL , i.e. the French Federation of Software Publishers) set up a website to simplify the procedure for project promoters, when submitting projects for funding within the National Investment Program ( www.investirdanslenumerique.fr ). David Appia, Chairman & CEO of IFA, explains, “The French government’s National Investment Program is providing a boost to a dynamic network of partnerships created by France’s innovation clusters through its funding offers for projects involving IT-system designers, telecoms operators, software publishers, technology integrators, research laboratories, and innovative SMEs.” Thanks to this initiative, five projects will receive state aid amounting to €19 million. These include software-engineering platform CloudForce , developed by Orange Labs (which comes under telecommunications operator Orange); CloudPort , an application-porting scheme designed by Prologue, a specialist SME; the high-performance software-infrastructure project known as Magellan , developed by Bull; a community-Cloud project known as Nu@age , promoted by Non Stop Systems, another  specialist SME; and, finally, UnivCloud , a Cloud project managed by INEO, a higher-education institution. France provides new entrants with a growth-friendly environment. French legislation affords a high level of protection for data and for data processing. In particular, regulations governing encryption, which include Act No. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 and Decree No 2007-663 of 2 May 2007, cover concerns relating to the sensitivity of data entrusted to Cloud-computing centres. New entrants include US company Joyent, established in the Ile-de-France region in 2010, which provides IaaS to LinkedIn, Disney, CNN, Facebook, Yahoo and vente-privee.com. Joyent also provides open-source PaaS to publishers, hosting companies, and specialist computer-services companies, such as Dell and First Service. This pioneering Cloud-computing start-up is now competing with Cloud-based offerings from companies such as Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azur. In 2010, Dell entered into an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Joyent to use its smart technologies in order to offer turnkey Clouds hosted on its servers. Alongside international players such as Microsoft, Google, HP, AT&T and IBM, France is also home to numerous other companies, including Atos, Capgemini, Steria, Orange and SFR. Atos, an international IT-services company, has recently established Yunano, a joint venture with Chinese company UFIDA, a provider of management-software solutions and services, in order to market Cloud-based management software and associated services. French software publisher Systancia, which has operations in Alsace (in eastern France) and in Ile-de-France (i.e. Paris and its region), is a market leader in Europe for application and workstation user-environment virtualisation. France has eight innovation clusters involved in Cloud computing: Cap Digital; System@tic; Elopsys; Images et réseaux; Imaginove; Minalogic; Secure Communication Solutions; and, finally, TES, the hi-tech cluster specialising in e-secure transactions.  About Invest in France Agency Invest in France Agency (IFA) is France’s national agency responsible for promoting and facilitating international investment in France. IFA also co-ordinates a range of initiatives in order to promote France’s economic attractiveness and stimulate inward investment. The IFA network operates worldwide, with offices within France as well as in North and South America, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the rest of Asia. Within France, IFA works in partnership with regional development agencies to offer international investors outstanding business opportunities and customised services. For further information, please go to: www.investinfrance.org  

QOOQ, the first touchpad of its kind in the field of gastronomy, which has been developed by Unowhy of France, will be launched in the English-language market at the 2012 International CES®.   The trade event, which is the largest international consumer-technology trade show, will take place from 10 to 13 January 2012 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, in Las Vegas (USA).  “In creating QOOQ, we wished to link a technological innovation to a premium content dedicated entirely to the culinary world. QOOQ is positioning itself as a multi -media cooking coach that teaches, advises, helps, and adapts itself to its user," explains Jean-Yves Hepp, inventor of QOOQ and Chairman of Unowhy. The QOOQ pad developed by Unowhy introduces high-quality culinary content and a panel of interactive services that simplify cooking. The company will showcase its innovative technology in English on Stand 36272 at the 2012 International CES® trade fair in Las Vegas in mid-January.  The QOOQ pad, the first touchpad to be made in France, is equipped with a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 double-heart processor, which affords powerful and rapid browsing. The hardware has been designed so that it may be used in a kitchen without risk: it is resistant to water splashes and food spatters; its screen can be cleaned with a sponge; its feet are non-slip; and, finally, it has waterproof buttons. As well as its culinary content, the 10-inch QOOQ touchpad offers the multimedia functions of standard touchpad devices, including internet browsing, video-clip technology, MP3, email, photography, and weather-forecast data. The QOOQ pad, gives access to more than 3,500 recipes presented in different forms — 1,500 of which are in video format — as well as dedicated interactive services, such as the meal planner and the automatic shopping list. More than 100 French chefs of high renown were involved in the creation of the QOOQ content, such as Guillaume Gomez, Assistant Chef at the Elysée Palace, the official residence of the French President, and Takeuchi Hisayuki, who has cooked for the Emperor of Japan and works at Le Kaiseki, the famous Japanese restaurant in Paris. In its English-language version, the QOOQ’s touchpad content will be adapted to the different markets targeted by Unowhy, while being complemented by the international chefs’ recipes. The content and services proposed by QOOQ can be personalised, in line with the user’s dietary preferences and priorities: it can be adapted to the tastes of each person by, for example, banning certain foodstuffs, or limiting the number of calories contained in a meal. Moreover, the quantities in recipes adjust themselves automatically in proportion to the number of guests, and family recipes can be added or shared. In addition to the QOOQ pad, the platform of content and services proposed by QOOQ is also available on connected media, such as computers, other touchpads, smart phones and connected TVs.   About Unowhy Unowhy, which is based in Paris (France), is a company specialising in digital media and proposing content and services concerned with cooking and gastronomy. The company was created in 2007. Jean-Yves Hepp founded Unowhy in order to capitalise on the fact that new technologies facilitate access to increasingly enhanced premium and personalised contents: his aim has been to improve cooking practices. Through a combination of advanced technology and sophisticated gastronomy, the company’s objective has been to make it possible for the greatest number of people to rediscover conviviality and the pleasure of eating well. Unowhy will participate in the 2012 International CES® trade show from 10 to 13 January 2012 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA). The company will present its QOOQ pad in English, on Stand 36272. Unowhy will also host a table at CES Unveiled, an event dedicated to the press, where journalists can meet exhibitors. CES Unveiled will be held on 8 January at the Venetian Hotel, in Las Vegas. For further information about the 2012 International CES®, please go to: www.cesweb.org For further information about QOOQ, please go to: www.qooq.com . (An English-language version of the website will be available from the end of December 2011) For further information about Unowhy, please go to: www.unowhy.com

WALLIX, a leading European IT-security company, has finalised an increase in share capital of €2 million to be carried out with Thierry Dassault Holding (TDH), the personal holding group of Thierry Dassault, and Auriga Partners, an independent venture-capital firm. As part of the deal, Thierry Dassault will acquire a stake in software developer WALLIX, which is to become a public limited company. WALLIX has completed discussions with the Auriga Partners investment fund, therefore preparing itself to embark on an ambitious international-development plan together with Thierry Dassault, a specialist in economic intelligence and the President of Keynectis, a European leader in technologies and advisory services. WALLIX, which operates in the UK out of its offices in Reading (in southern England), designs and develops software applied to IT security. “Through the years, the security of information exchanges on IT networks has become a fundamental challenge for businesses. My acquisition of a stake in WALLIX contributes to the strengthening of French companies’ investment strategies for such fundamental IT-related subjects. I hope that WALLIX may be able to take its place rapidly among the leading European players as is the case today for Keynectis, which I have supported since its creation in 2004,” says Thierry Dassault. "WALLIX is positioned in a rapidly growing market with a strong added value, and we are very happy to finance and support the large-scale international developments which lie ahead," underlines François Lainée, Associate at Auriga Partners. Since the launch of its WALLIX AdminBastion (WAB), the IT-security solution developed by the company in 2008, WALLIX has positioned itself clearly in the IAM (Identity and Access Management) market. WALLIX’s solutions strengthen the security of access to IT systems, user-account management, and the traceability of computer activity. Indeed, WALLIX is one of very few companies in the world to have developed a technology of ‘session recording’, which allows the recording of individual network-connection sessions and reproduces them in video-logs. Having analysed the growing success of the WALLIX’s IT-security products on the market, and in order to accompany European product deployment, WALLIX has decided to reinforce its own capital with new financial partners. In order to do this, the company has entrusted a mandate to LD&A, the corporate-finance specialist, with a view to working together in raising capital through potential investors. "This capital raising is going to strengthen significantly our pool of investors and our asset base, which constitutes a strong signal, for our key clients, in terms of the lasting nature [of the business]," declares Amaury Rosset, Financial Director and Partner of WALLIX. The capital raised will essentially be dedicated to the development of alliances with new strategic partners, as well as to the international expansion of the company, with the recruitment of value-added resellers (VARs) within the EU (including Britain) and in Switzerland. "Our development plan was able to appeal to leading investors and to the IT-security market at the same time. In a more robust setting, from now on, we envisage strengthening our presence in England, in Germany, in the Benelux countries as well as in the southern European countries that surround the Mediterranean, and in the Persian Gulf. Our objective is the accompaniment of the introduction of corporate governance and respect for regulatory and legal requirements, of dematerialization, and of ensuring the security of public (or private) Cloud Computing,” explains Jean-Noël de Galzain, CEO of WALLIX. “Given the growing impact of cyber criminality, and how far we have fallen behind in Europe [in this respect], we are even more motivated to provide our clients with means of IT controls and to build up an innovative and sustainable European proposition," adds the CEO of WALLIX. In the final stage of the capital increase,WALLIX will be transformed into a public limited company (or PLC) with a Board of Directors and a Management Board. The Board of Directors is set to consist of Amaury Rosset, Associate Finance Director; Jean-Yves Portalier, Director General and deputy to Jean-Noël de Galzain; and Jean-Noël de Galzain himself, who will become Chairman of the Board. The company will set up a Supervisory Council composed of five members, namely Stéphane Taunay, Chairman of the Board of Sopromec (an investment company); Pierre-Yves Dargaud, Chairman of the Board of Access2Net (a venture-capital group); François Lainée, Associate at Auriga Partners; Didier Lesteven, entrepreneur; and, finally, Thierry Dassault. Didier Lesteven will be Chairman of the Supervisory Council of WALLIX. In the past three years, WALLIX’s range of solutions has established itself as a product leader for the external provision of secure IT access, for the traceability of users’ actions, and for user-account management. Today, the WAB solutions developed by WALLIX are deployed in more than 100 large businesses and in industries as diverse as banking, manufacturing and the media, as well as in the public sector. WALLIX’s products are distributed in the form of software and hardware solutions through a network of integrators and certified VARs present in Belgium, England, France, Luxembourg, Russia and Switzerland. About WALLIX WALLIX is a developer and distributor of computer-security software specialising in traceability and risk management linked to the outsourcing of IT. WALLIX, which is based in Paris (France) and in Reading (England), also has a subsidiary in New York (USA). The company distributes its software products through a network of VARs that operate across Europe and North Africa. WALLIX’s solutions are aimed at IT directors and those responsible for IT security, who must improve the IT risk management of businesses in order to be compliant with regulations. The company’s products are used in the financial-services industry, in manufacturing, in health and medical services, and in the public sector. WALLIX’s Wallix Admin Bastion has been adopted by many large and medium-size companies. The company also produces WALLIX LogBox (WLB ), a solution that logs system-connection information. WALLIX is a prize-winner of the Oseo Innovation awards, of the PM’UP programme, and a partner of the System@tic Paris Region high-technology cluster of excellence. WALLIX has also recently been awarded the title Champion of the Cluster . For further information on the System@tic Paris Region high-technology cluster, please go to: www.systematic-paris-region.org/en   For further information on WALLIX, please go to: www.wallix.com

After publishing Microsoft Outlook plug-ins for several years, AddOnMail of France has announced the arrival of the latest version of its leading product, PSTStation Corporate for Outlook — the PSTStation Corporate 3.5. Jean-Christophe Cisse, CEO of AddOnMail, explains, "PSTStation Corporate 3.5 is a genuine breakthrough in migrating PST files for [Microsoft] Exchange 2010. With our product, a company with tens of thousands of users is finally able to plan a genuine migration for its PST files." "With PSTStation Corporate, a company will cut the duration of its PST file migration project by at least 50%. It will also save over 50% of the cost, since no development is required and everything is processed automatically,” adds Jean-Christophe Cisse. This increase in efficiency is possible thanks to the software package’s unique open PST file management and incremental message-processing technology. The migration can therefore be run 24/7, even while users are reading or writing their messages. PSTStation Corporate 3.5 features a powerful connector to import PST files into Exchange 2010 users’ mailboxes. The software also includes a function for the detection and identification of PST files within the corporate network; the technology to select source messages to be archived; and, additionally, a powerful multithread connector to inject messages into Exchange 2010. Furthermore, AddOnMail’s new software solution features many post-archiving functions, such as the automatic PST file removal from user profiles, message deletion from the PST source once archived, and the possibility of marking PST files as read-only. PSTStation Corporate has already won the trust of many companies in France and in the United States, including in sectors such as banking and manufacturing.  About AddOnMail   AddOnMail is an IT specialist company, providing more than 20,000 users worldwide with powerful tools and specialised services. Honoured as the best innovative product at the Microsoft Tech-ED trade show in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2004, AddOnMail is based in Paris (France) and recently opened a branch in Canada. AddOnMail publishes archiving and electronic-message-management solutions, especially those stored on user workstations. The company helps businesses locate messages within their corporate network. AddOnMail also helps IT managers secure the data thanks to its archiving and backup functions, as well as functions making it possible to move data to other, more secure (or cheaper) storage space. For further information, please go to: www.addonmail.com .

International auditing firm KPMG has confirmed the appeal of the Lille region (in northern France) for non-French investors. According to the independent survey conducted by KPMG and published in November 2011, 85% of respondents, representing the 1,077 subsidiaries of foreign-owned groups established in Northern France, recommend the region. According to KPMG, the international auditing firm, the prime reason companies choose to establish a subsidiary in Northern France is the strategic location the region offers. The Lille region lies at the heart of Europe’s leading consumer catchment area. Two-thirds of the companies surveyed highlighted their aim to reach the markets of northern Europe (including France) as having driven their decision to invest in the region: an impressive 82% of companies see this locational advantage as crucial to their success in these markets. The high quality of the local labour force also satisfies the companies: 60% were satisfied with the region’s labour force — a proportion reaching 75% of respondents in the field of trade and logistics. Undoubtedly, this is another reason businesses choose to settle in region surrounding Lille. Regarding the quality of life, seven out of 10 business leaders say that they are satisfied with the region’s cultural dynamism and tourist potential, and close to two-thirds approve of the sports facilities available in the Lille region. The local geography and environment are also a cause for satisfaction among foreign-owned companies: 80% indicate that they are satisfied (or fairly satisfied) with the region in this respect. Northern France is a region whose attractiveness is not always fully appreciated by outsiders: prior to their arrival, 46% of decision-makers surveyed had a good image of the region, but a third (33%) admitted to having a negative perception. Once established, however, only 1% of these decision-makers have retained this negative view, while 68% of respondents indicate that they are satisfied (or very satisfied) with the Lille region. With hindsight, none of the companies surveyed see their location in the Lille region as a handicap. On the contrary, 60% describe the move as an asset to their businesses, especially those hailing from the Benelux countries, and 27% see the relocation as strategic in terms of the company’s development in northern Europe.  Moreover, a majority of the companies surveyed have felt genuinely welcome in northern France: close to 60% of respondents consider the welcome given to expatriates to be satisfying or very satisfying.  Despite being a border region and a hub for pan-European trade, the Lille region has a strong identity rooted in its history. Indeed, a third of respondents believe that the region stands apart from the rest of France, especially those from Germany and the Netherlands, who acknowledge a stronger cultural affinity with the region. Lastly, the Lille region is founded upon powerful ethical values that are important to businesses. Respondents were asked what “values” they associated with the region: “work”, “fighting spirit”, “energy” and “hospitality” were widely mentioned by those surveyed. This gives an overview of the positive image that the region enjoys with international investors. About Nord France Invest Nord France Invest is the publicly funded investment-promotion agency for Northern France (including the city of Lille and its surroundings). The agency helps businesses to develop and make the most out of their move to the region of Northern France. D rawing on expertise across a wide range of fields, Nord France Invest and its network partners offer personalised and fully confidential services to investors, free of charge, from the initial decision through to the launch and follow-up. In pursuing these aims, Nord France Invest draws on the skills of its own staff, combined with expert input from an extensive network of regional and international partners. For further information, please go to: www.investinnorthernfrance.com

CARTES & IDentification 2011, which took place in Paris from 15 to 17 November 2011, attracted close to 20,000 visitors, confirming its international influence and positioning itself as a key global event for digital security and smart technologies. With a rising number of visitors — 19,510 visitors, against 18,770 in 2010 — the trade show once again met the sector’s high expectations. Building on this success, the CARTES team has already announced the dates of the next trade show: 6 to 8 November 2012 in Paris (France). Combining innovation and dynamism, CARTES & IDentification 2011, which was held in Paris in mid-November, was a reflection of a dynamic market – from the conferences to the SESAMES Awards, and given the high number of visitors. The trade show confirmed its international status, with 430 exhibitors from 45 countries and 19,510 visitors, 69% of whom were from outside France, representing 143 countries in total. The 21 conferences, held over the three days that the trade show lasted, welcomed 1,225 participants, 87% of whom were from outside France. Key industry issues were discussed at length, in particular during the conferences dedicated to mobile payments and mobile financial services (including near-field communication, or NFC, and contactless services); to the future of payments and payment technology, more generally; to security in a Cloud ecosystem; to multi-application cards; to point-of-sale and point-of-interaction technologies and developments; and, finally, to e-government. These conferences were all a success. As in previous years, the high point of the trade show was the inaugural conference – the World Card Summit. During the conference, key leaders from the industry analysed major market trends and presented their strategic visions in front of 500 people. For the first time in Europe, Scott Mulloy, the Chief Technology Officer of ISIS (a joint mobile-payment venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless) presented his mobile-payment vision.  EUROSMART, the international trade association that represents the smart-card industry, also presented a preview of the 2011 figures and forecasts for the global market. EUROSMART indicated that it expected 13% growth across the sector in 2012, and a total of 7 billion units produced for secure smart devices. Applications in mobile payments and NFC were the key themes of this year’s CARTES & IDentification. Visitors were informed of the deployment of contactless technology and the arrival of NFC terminals for mobile payment thanks to many demonstrations, including that of the NFC car by Oberthur Technologies, a world leader in security based on smart-card technology and associated services. Global semiconductor company NXP also presented its e-bike. The pavilion dedicated to mobile-payment companies hosted 12 solutions providers for mobile payments, transactions management, Trusted Service Management (TSM), smartphones, tablets and other smart mobile objects. Similarly, CARTES & IDentification 2011 presented many projects in government security and in e-health. The identification and authentication technologies presented by the exhibitors have been applied to many documents, including biometric passports, electronic ID, electronic driver’s licences and health-registration cards. E-health was in the spotlight this year due to the trade show’s Smart Health Exhibition. The exhibition presented innovations in electronic health records, health cards, and applications for telemedicine that improve the quality of care services and patients’ comfort, but which also help in the fight against fraud and inflation in health costs.  The winners of the 2011 SESAMES Awards were revealed in front of a privileged audience of 300 guests during a ceremony organised at the Automobile Club de France, in central Paris. Among the winners was Dynamics Inc: its Chips And Choice TM solution won the award for best hardware. The award for best software was given to NXP for its Open-source NFC Host Software stack for Android. GEMALTO won the prize for the best IT-security application, thanks to Just4YourEyes. INSIDE Secure’s VHBR application won the award for best transportation solution.  The prize for best banking/retail/loyalty application was awarded to SIMartis Telecom, for its Bubble solution. HID Global’s Next Generation Secure Identity Ecosystem was unveiled as the best secure internet/authentication application. PN65 Secure NFC Module by NXP was given the award for best mobility application.  The SESAME award for identification went to Smart Packaging Solutions, for its Embedded Contactless Module. The award for best e-transactions application went to Verifone, for its PAYware Mobile Enterprise, and Oberthur Technologies won the award for the best manufacturing & tests application thanks to its ID One Digital watermark. About CARTES & IDentification   CARTES & IDentification is the foremost business event that brings together the entire digital-security, smart-technologies, payment, contactless and mobility sectors. The trade show, organised by Comexposium, the international event-management group, provides a unique setting to discuss and discover the industry’s latest trends and new products. CARTES & IDentification 2011 had almost 20,000 visitors (69% of whom were from outside France, with a total of 143 different countries represented) and welcomed 430 exhibitors, who came from 45 countries. The trade show’s conferences welcomed 1,225 participants from across the globe. The 27th CARTES & IDentification trade show will be held from 6 to 8 November 2012 at the Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition centre, north of the French capital. The guest-of-honour nation, in 2012, will be India. Photos of the 2011 CARTES & IDentification trade show can be obtained on request from LEWIS PR( cartes@lewispr.com ).  The trade show’s blog can be found at: www.blogcartes.com   For more information, please go to the tradeshow’s website: www.cartes.com

The card and identification market is expanding fast in France, with many home-grown businesses offering unique expertise in the field of smart-card technology. The sector is also attracting many international players, who are investing in R&D and production facilities. Near Field Communication (NFC), which is the technology used for contactless identification and transactions, has experienced rapid growth across the sector in 2010-2011. France has recently experienced developments that make it a key player in the contactless-identification and contactless-transaction sectors. The CARTES and IDentification trade show was held at the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre (in the French capital) from 15 to 17 November 2011. It focused on the contactless card-and-payment industry, the Internet of Things (which is the term used to describe the virtual representation of identifiable objects by the internet), machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, as well as the development of identification technologies. In May 2011, the French government issued a €20-million call for projects that support the deployment of NFC mobile services. From 20 to 30 contactless mobile-telephony projects offering information and payment transactions to be rolled out in several major French cities will be awarded funding. According to EUROSMART, the international trade association that represents the smart-card industry, global use of smart secure devices amounted to almost 6.1-million units of contactless smart cards in 2011. These devices were used in telecommunications (4.6 million of which were in microprocessor cards), in financial and payment services (1 million), and in passports, identity and health-care cards (0.22 million). The rest was split between a variety of applications, notably in transport (such as tickets and tolls) and pay television. French companies with recognised expertise in the smart-card security sector include INSIDE Secure, which is based in Aix-en-Provence (south-eastern France), but is also a member of the TES (Secure Electronic Transactions) cluster of excellence in Caen (Normandy): INSIDE Secure has acquired ATMEL’s Secure Microcontroller Solution (SMS) division. Gemalto is another established player in the industry, and is based in Sophia Antipolis (in south-eastern France). TAZ-TAG, for its part, is headquartered in Rennes (Brittany), and has entered into a partnership agreement with Quand Medical, a specialist in medical information based in Toronto (Canada). In the field of identification technology, Bluelinea, a manufacturer of medical devices, is preparing for the 2011 launch of an electronic bracelet to monitor Alzheimer’s patients in their homes. In this field, more generally, the ability to monitor any item, cargo, vehicle, animal or person requiring special surveillance will call for the detection infrastructure to be installed at compulsory passage points. Furthermore, ethical considerations that arise from monitoring and identifying people and goods will need to be assessed. Other applications could quickly become widespread, concerning, for example, till procedures (in relation to bar-code scanning, for instance) and toll points (using RFID scanners). Similarly, there are widespread applications in ticketing — from urban-transport systems and the parking of vehicles to the management of bookings at theatres and other day-to-day transactions. Foreign investors have been quick to seize opportunities in the French identification market by making use of tax incentives that support research-and-development projects wherever possible. These incentives include France’s research tax credit. Among the international companies having invested in France in this sector, SATO of Japan provides radio-frequency identification (RFID) solutions from its Lille site (in northern France), while Markem-Imaje, a US-based specialist in coding and identification, has established a site close to the Secure Communication Solutions (SCS) cluster of excellence in Valbonne Sophia Antipolis. For its part, German company Deister Electronic is a leading player in RFID solutions in Paris and its region. Another example is Maroc Traitement de Transactions (M2T), which has also established a site in the Paris region, with the help of IFA and the Paris Region Economic Development Agency (PREDA). Innovation clusters that specialise in traceability, such as Novalog in St-Étienne-du-Rouvray (in north-eastern France) and SYSTEMATIC (based in Paris and its region), are also home to many foreign companies. In October 2011, the NFC Forum, a consortium of manufacturers responsible for defining NFC standards, updated the so-called Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol (SNEP) specifications for peer-to-peer sharing, therefore setting out a common data format that can be used across all NFC devices. SNEP enables two NFC-equipped telephones to exchange data simply by making the two handsets touch each other. This function can be put to a wide variety of uses: for exchanging business cards, gathering special offers for use at a later time, contacting and following people on social networks, exchanging small amounts of money or travel tickets, and so on. About Invest in France Agency Invest in France Agency (IFA) is France’s national agency responsible for promoting and facilitating international investment in France. IFA also co-ordinates a range of initiatives in order to promote France’s economic attractiveness and stimulate inward investment. The IFA network operates worldwide, with offices within France as well as in North and South America, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the rest of Asia. In France, IFA works in partnership with regional development agencies to offer international investors outstanding business opportunities and customised services. For further information, please go to: www.investinfrance.org