Now, the question of license prices. We discussed it earlier with the president. A CIO wants to leave Microsoft because the license price increased by 20% effectively, then after negotiation it came down to 17% this year. But it's been like that for three years. We had the case of Broadcom with VMware which increased its license prices, first breaking perpetual licenses for subscriptions. How do you integrate that into your strategic thinking to advise the client?
As I told you, most of the time if someone wants Salesforce, they have already chosen Salesforce. So we are not in the evaluation of the solution, we are in the implementation. We evolve our skills according to needs. We continuously look at what skills are needed based on market demand. Obviously there was a peak in Salesforce implementation and we strongly increased our Salesforce skills to respond to client needs. We are a services company. If clients want to implement Salesforce, we must develop those skills to help them. But we are constantly evaluating the evolution of our skills relative to market demand. We are in continuous transformation on business technology. The skills I have today are quite different from 10 years ago. License price stories are decisions for clients. They create a dependency, they understand the consequences. We are not advisors on those aspects. When we play an advisory role, it's not about Salesforce prices or which is the best economic cost for you. It's generally on evaluating the technical solution relative to client needs. That's where we add value. We are not in commercial negotiation, not in license conditions. So we don't intervene, at least I have never intervened in that area with a client. To answer your question on the Broadcom example, which we all saw, indeed a number of clients saw their bills increase considerably and came to us saying we need to limit our dependency on Broadcom. What are the alternative solutions on the market? What are the possibilities in open source or other software vendors? Can you accompany us to possibly do migrations? We did not intervene in the negotiation with Broadcom, which I understand from our clients was sometimes difficult, but that's not our role and generally we don't even know the acquisition prices of clients, to be very transparent.
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur.
Thank you, Mr. President. You have repeatedly explained your role of neutrality and accompaniment once decisions are made. During a previous hearing, the person heard mentioned that Capgemini and I imagine its top management have access to the highest authorities of the State, notably the Prime Minister in regular meetings, which is normal for an economic actor. I imagine that during these meetings, you are not in technical analysis but in economic analysis of opportunities, that you debate questions of sovereignty. What do you tell him? What do you say? And do you talk about the importance of demand, especially what you said about the economic importance of demand for Microsoft? Do you talk about how to get out of that dependency?
First of all, I have never met the Prime Minister or former Prime Ministers. Just so you know, I have few relationships. Other government actors? Yes, I have met ministers because sometimes I am summoned to understand what we do, to explain what is happening and what is changing. That's limited to that. I have never been in a situation where I brought recommendations on particular situations with a minister. So I have had interactions but frankly I see a minister once or twice a year, that's it. But we do not play an advisory role. I have never been in an advisory role with a minister.
Twice a year is more than many people. But you tell me we have an educational role. You understand that it's not the same thing to say 'watch out, there are risks of kill switch, watch out we have dependencies in terms of updates' as to say 'Microsoft or AWS are unavoidable actors. Let's learn to live with them.' You understand that in terms of reading the world and education, it's not quite the same thing. So between the two, there are degrees, I don't know where you stand.
But once again, take the example of Bleu, we responded to a need that was expressed by the government to try to find a solution to demands they had. So you have to understand that often on certain aspects, we respond to needs that are expressed to us. So when we have an educational role, we bring our knowledge. We are not the only ones to bring knowledge, but we try to educate as much as possible about market reality, what we see in terms of business demand, the constraints they have. When they ask us questions, we answer accordingly. But I have never been proactive in pushing one subject or another at the government level.
Thank you. On the Bleu proposal, you explained that it's a French company with French capital that sits on American Microsoft technologies but on which there is, you said, normally no access to data. Do you have a support and maintenance contract with Microsoft for example on these solutions?
I have no contract with Microsoft. I am an investor in Bleu. Bleu is an independent company. But it's important: the agreements are between Bleu and Microsoft. I have members who are on the board of directors like Orange, but I am treated by Bleu like any other service company in France. And it's important to understand that. I only intervene as an investor if there are elements regarding financial aspects through the board members. I have no direct intervention within Bleu.
Sorry, thank you. That allows me to clarify my wording. You mentioned the creation of Bleu as responding to a demand and to concerns, that is, to have sovereign cloud offers with developed services. So the question of the reality of sovereignty is important. So your knowledge of Bleu, you are a shareholder, has a support and maintenance contract with Microsoft.
Bleu by definition has a contract with Microsoft since it uses the Microsoft solution. So there is a commercial agreement to remunerate Microsoft for access to its technology. Otherwise Microsoft doesn't do it for free. So it's obvious that Bleu has a license agreement with Microsoft to use Microsoft technologies. However, what you need to understand, and we spent a lot of time on it and why it takes a lot of time because it's very complicated in terms of technological solution, we are getting to the end, it's a disconnected solution. That is, no one from Microsoft has any access to what happens in Bleu. Bleu is data centers in France with French capital, French employees. And a company that is completely watertight from any extraterritorial law. And there were many discussions with Microsoft from the start on the fact that the solution was completely disconnected. So no person from Microsoft, whether in France or elsewhere, can have access to Bleu. To answer your question precisely, the operations, support and maintenance activities around the solution are carried out in France by employees of Bleu, so all operations are carried out by Bleu itself.
Thank you. To clarify the question of a rapporteur, to understand, you said we responded to a need, an expression of need. Who was at the initiative of this expression of need? Was it Microsoft? Was it the State? How did Capgemini end up in Bleu? What is the genesis of Bleu? Because it raises a question of... how did it come about? And then I would have a question on the legal treatment.
No, it came about because we needed to find SecNumCloud solutions. We needed to find solutions that could meet the constraints of this cloud. You know there is Bleu, there is SENS as other similar solutions that respond to these needs of SecNumCloud, to bring solutions that are competitive in terms of cloud, with certain functionalities that are not just infrastructure, but service and platform layers. So to bring this competitiveness relative to a certain number of French actors, not only administrations but also potentially French strategic actors. So to bring competitiveness while ensuring compliance with cloud regulations that protect and respond to the constraints desired by the State. So the genesis comes from there.
My question more precisely is who was at the origin of the discussions that led to the construction of Bleu? Was it Microsoft because they were losing market share or they thought they were losing market share because they couldn't respond to SecNumCloud? Was it Orange? Was it you? Was it the State saying 'I need a solution'? And so I ask you, French industrialists, to sit around a table to discuss. That's it.
Frankly, I don't have the exact historical timeline in my head. It was discussions that ended up leading to that. I don't have a formal request from someone who asked me. There were discussions, exchanges, including at the time with Stéphane Richard. But your perception of Microsoft losing market share, there was no loss of market share because in fact there was no solution at that stage that corresponded to these needs. So the reality, then there were discussions with Microsoft to see how to respond, whether there was a solution to meet the needs. And when we defined the needs for a completely watertight solution, there were long discussions to see if it was technically possible, feasible, and if we could meet those constraints.
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur.
Thank you. Do your engineers have access to the source code of Microsoft solutions for Bleu?
I think that's a question to ask Bleu since they have the agreement with Microsoft. From the outside, I don't think they have access to the source code. But I think that's a question to ask Bleu.
Thank you. Legal question: you signed a partnership with AWS to implement solutions on the sovereign cloud, the sovereign cloud of AWS. What legal difference do you make between Bleu and the so-called sovereign solution of AWS? What risks does Bleu cover that are not covered by AWS? And yet you signed a partnership saying it allowed to meet the growing digital sovereignty requirements of European organizations in regulated sectors. So there is a legal question.
I will perhaps not go into the technological detail of the two solutions. I'm not sure I'm competent, but what you need to understand is that the hyperscalers hear the demand for sovereignty from European customers, all three, and have all refined or revised their service offerings to be able to offer offers with higher security and data protection guarantees than those they had in their standard public cloud solution. So AWS made a response with a solution with a legal structure based in Germany which also provides for extraterritoriality. Google has made proposals with solutions that are able to work in autonomous mode or autarky and that can be installed in client data centers or Google data centers. So the hyperscalers' offers are evolving. Bleu, the AWS offer is not SecNumCloud where we are talking. Bleu is one of the two SecNumCloud offers today with SENS and meets specific criteria, which is not the case for AWS. However, AWS can meet sovereignty and strategic dependency constraints but will not cover as well or in the same way as a Bleu or SENS solution.
Thank you. Just for precision, when we talk about SecNumCloud, there is not only SENS and Bleu, there are about ten actors whatever they are who are also. So it's you, we talked about that but there are a myriad of others with which I suppose you maintain relationships to at least understand their technology to then implement them.
Absolutely. We work with everyone. Once again, Bleu is a company where Capgemini has a financial interest. As a service provider, Capgemini works with all companies. So we have partnerships with OVH, we talk with SENS, so we talk with everyone. We must make the difference between the role we played to help set up something that responds to a need through this investment in Bleu and the initial genesis of the program, and our role as a service company which is to work with all available solutions according to our clients' demand. Moreover, we do not market Bleu. Bleu has its own sales force, its own marketing, etc.
Thank you, Madam.
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur.
