This summer, the American giant of the Net has bought out the Euro909.com company, which subsidiary is established at the CICA. This subsidiary will become VeriSign France from the beginning of October.
The VeriSign e-empire at the CICA in Sophia will come very soon. The American company of the Net economy, specialized in secured transactions and domain names (it bought out Networks Solutions Inc for 15.5 billion dollars in March 2000) was physically not very present in France until now. The buy out of Euro909.com this summer enabled them to establish at Sophia Antipolis.
“The Web tollbooth”
The group Euro909.com A/S is the European leader in the registration and management of domain names. Funded in May 1986 and listed on the stock market since 1997, the group is set up in many European countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy. Its French subsidiary established at the CICA of Sophia Antipolis in November 1999. It is responsible for ensuring the necessary services for the registration and the management of domain names in more than 240 countries ; for companies which head office is located in France and French speaking countries. At the moment, it gathers about thirty employees, including many sales representatives, as well as lawyers, technicians and secretaries.
VeriSign, which was sometimes called the « Web tollbooth » in the worldwide management of domain names and secured transactions on the Net, intends to launch onto the French market from the research park. Whereas teams are under a reorganization, the new leaflets under the name of VeriSign are being prepared for a change to become American from the beginning of October.
The French adventure will then begin for this Californian company which has been in very good health for a year despite the crisis of Internet companies. In a few years, the Californian group has succeeded to build a real empire on the Internet. Thanks to many acquisitions, the latest being the one of Euro909.com, it is spreading its range of services and infrastructures linked to the Web : registration of domain names (a few months ago, it reinforced again its position by getting the « .info », « .biz » and « .name » domain names), secured payments, and data authentication. The e-empire is now indispensable.