Cloudwatt

Cloudwatt was a core initiative of Project Andromède, one of France's periodic attempts at building a local computer industry. Project Andromède was announced in 2009 as a governmental desire for French-controlled cloud computing, with the goal of spending €285 million (US $338 million) in "cloud souverain" ("sovereign cloud" in English).[1][2]

Overview

The launch of Cloudwatt was a part of the Andromède project initiated in 2009 to promote France in the cloud computing market.[3][4]

Cloudwatt was established on September 6, 2012 as a subsidiary of Orange S.A., with the government of France and French military contractor Thales as secondary shareholders.[5] Patrick Starck became the CEO of the company.[6][7]

In 2013, Cloudwatt chose US-based Juniper Networks as a supplier to ensure French data sovereignty.[8] Commercial sales began in 2014,[9] and were expected to reach €500 million per year.[10] The company developed a Dropbox-like storage service targeting small businesses and organizations, which was advertised on TV in 2013.[11]

On March 20, 2015, Orange bought the company out the other investors.[12][13] On January 1, 2016, Cloudwatt merged with Orange Business Services through its subsidiary Orange Cloud for Business.

Despite government subsidies of €75 million, after two years, the project had revenues of just €6 million. At the end of July 2019, the platform announced to its customers the cessation of its activity, scheduled for January 31, 2020.[14][15][16] The users were advised to switch to the Flexible Engine public cloud platform.[17] On February 1, 2020, all services were terminated and clients were advised that their data was deleted.[18][19][20]

Assets

Cloudwatt had a capital of 225 million euros with the distribution of funds as follows: 44.4% for Orange, 22.2% for Thales, 33.3% for Caisse des Dépôts.

On January 13, 2015, Orange and its subsidiary Orange cloud for business announced the intention to buy back all of Cloudwatt.[21]

Since March 2015, Orange held 100% of the capital of Cloudwatt.

See also

Official website

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References
  1. "285 millions d'euros pour Andromède, le cloud souverain français". October 23, 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-10-23.
  2. "France continues to pursue its own data centre infrastructure, dubbed “le cloud souverain”, despite the closure of some of the businesses initially behind the idea." https://theconversation.com/digital-colonialism-why-some-countries-want-to-take-control-of-their-peoples-data-from-big-tech-123048
  3. Avril 2012, Par Christophe Auffray | Vendredi 20. "Cloud Andromède : Orange et Thales se félicitent et se disent prêts à démarrer". ZDNet France (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  4. "Franceinfo - Actualités en temps réel et info en direct". Franceinfo (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  5. "Cloud souverain : Orange et Thalès lancent Cloudwatt - Le Monde Informatique". LeMondeInformatique (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  6. Gr, Yves; montagne (2013-07-22). "Où en est Cloudwatt ? avec Raphaël Ferreira de eNovance". Silicon (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  7. "Cloudwatt : des offres naissantes misant sur l'Open Source". www.journaldunet.com (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  8. Alex Scroxton (28 July 2014). "Cloudwatt deploys SDN to orchestrate public cloud service". Retrieved 19 October 2020. The Paris-based business picked Juniper Networks' OpenContrail – an open source project initiated by the network supplier in autumn 2013 – to improve network operation efficiency and safeguard data sovereignty
  9. Ricknäs, Mikael (January 12, 2015). "Orange looks to take over struggling French cloud". CIO.
  10. Sze, Maricar (August 5, 2019). "Cloudwatt Announces Complete Halt on Its Services Come Feb 2020". Myce.com.
  11. Meyer, David (November 18, 2013). "A guide to the French national cloud(s)". gigaom.com.
  12. "Orange confirms Cloudwatt acquisition". Telecoms.com. March 20, 2015.
  13. "Orange prend le contrôle de la totalité de Cloudwatt". usine-digitale.fr. Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  14. "Cloudwatt : arrêt définitif de service en février 2020 - Le Monde Informatique". LeMondeInformatique (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  15. "Orange to close down Cloudwatt in France". www.telecompaper.com. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  16. "Orange enterre définitivement Cloudwatt". ChannelNews (in French). 2019-07-31. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  17. "Flexible Engine, le Cloud public fiable et sécurisé d'Orange". Cloud - Orange Business Services (in French). Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  18. rédaction, La (August 29, 2019). "Cloudwatt : vie et mort du premier « cloud souverain » de la France".
  19. "Orange enterre Cloudwatt, qui fermera ses portes le 31 janvier 2020". www.nextinpact.com. August 30, 2019.
  20. "Adieu le cloud souverain, Orange ferme aujourd'hui Cloudwatt" (in French). 2020-01-31. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  21. "En voulant racheter Cloudwatt, Orange défie Atos dans le cloud français". usine-digitale.fr. Retrieved 2021-07-21.
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