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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]
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.
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