Steve Gale and the 'Gale Force Computing', Georges Dick and Internix, Philippe Zunino from Monte Carlo-Multimedia and others: the Net generation is coming…
The history will say it is a British who played the role of the pioneer of the Internet in the principality. Steve Gale, an experimented IT engineer opened in Monaco in 1988 a little shop: Gale Force Computing. He was selling IT equipment and PC games, but he also developed software for shipping and multi-currencies accounting. He also put together materials for made-to-measure computers (since1991) and above all, he turned to be in 1994 the 'first public access place to the Internet in southern France.'
Gale Force F1
The number of his clients increased a lot (the newspapers central, or the hotels Métropole and Loews), while he invested even more to better the Internet access. Real phenomenon in the principality, Steve Gale also made web publication. We can thank him for 'Monaco on line' (monaco.mc) and 'Gale Force F1' that follows the news and give the results of the races in live: an average of 40,000 people go on his server on Sundays when a Grand-Prix occurs.
Georges Dick, 36, likes to define himself as a 'pioneer of the Internet'. He created his company Internix in 1992, which became in 1994 an 'Internet protagonist'. Since then, he has offered 'all what constitutes the Internet': access, sites lodging, software development…Even better, his firm now called 'Monaco Internet' launched in January 2000 'the principality research engine': one year of work for that 'gate' (monaco.net) which classifies Monaco web sites by themes.
A new gate which already delivers 'more than 350,000 pages each month' and which is every day improved: Monaco Internet is now testing on the gate free lodging.
Research engines and Monaco gates
Philippe Zunino, 34, is another 'child of Monaco' who decided to launched on the Internet in 1996. Monte-Carlo Multimédia (MCM) is today a profitable start-up with an increasing turnover. 'We do not have any global projects, nor the desire to enter the Stock Exchange, he says. We only want to create a firm in Monaco.
MCM is a small team composed by three young people about 30, which does very classical things (lodging, creation of sites…) but insisting on the 'referencing of our clients into research engines and yearbooks'. Originality: MCM installed an entry gate in Monaco (monte-carlo.mc) which is visited by 20,000 people a month. A site that targets 'those who want to invest' to whom are explained all the 'juridico-financial machinery of the principality'.
Monaco new generation
For its designer, the site 'represents a prestigious address used by 500 Monaco entities among which the Real-Estate Chamber and a great deal of real-estate agencies, several little hotels and some restaurants and even a bank, the CMB, all from Monaco'. Other originality: these clients pay a monthly rent for the lodging and to have their sites updated. And it is not necessary for a real-estate agency to do more than one renting a year via its site to make pay its own rents!
More recently created (1997), IMCN was recently bought by a web solution company from Milan: 21 Network. It supplies with IT services and with the Internet clients like Amadeus, Monaco train-station or Gianfranco Ferre. Also founded in 1997, Net-State is a young firm specialised in creation of web sites. It owns cyber-monaco.mc, a server 'introducing the principality in her different aspects' and having more than 12,000 accesses a day. The new Monegasque high-tech generation.