The fabulous France Telecom building in Sophia Antipolis, the Agora is for sale. The Agora was built at the end of the 80s, when the group was still national and had the monopole. The building was a great Riviera window for the operator technologies. But because of the purchase of Orange and UMTS licenses, France Telecom has launched a property reorganization policy, which also touches the technopole. The Agora is for sale from 120 million francs.The CCI (Chamber of commerce) which would like to widen the Ceram, its business school, had thought to buy the building.

For the 7th meeting of Sophia Start-Up, about ten projects pending or about to begin were presented. With an enormous choice in the Internet services.

Created last January in Sophia, the wireless division, presented a 'sticker' system dedicated to chips makers for wireless applications

Auchan has begun works of a 'third millennium hypermarket' in Grasse. This new hypermarket (4,340 m² of market area) will also have a 12 stores shopping mall and a 800 places parking lot. The complex settles on the Sodial commercial site (3,200 m²) Auchan bought in 1996, in the Paoute district, road RN 98 between Grasse and Mouans-Sartoux. The amount of the works reaches 100 million francs. The opening is planned for June 2001. About 100 jobs should be created, one half for the hypermarket and the other half for the shopping mall.

L'European IT Forum, du 11 au 13 septembre au Forum Grimaldi, témoigne de l'orientation donnée par un nouveau palais des congrès monégasque qui a décidé de jouer à fond les congrès et salons liés à la nouvelle économie. Cette manifestation, dont c'est la dixième édition, se tenait habituellement à Paris.

The Menton town council has adopted the idea of a towns community of regions at the East of the French Riviera, gathering together the districts around and until Tende.

The ad 'Le Feu'('the fire') of the young firm Aucland, which had moved a lot of countries throughout Europe (France had demanded to cut some scenes and in Spain it had been banned on TV), is now in the short list of the Ad Festival which takes place in Cannes until June 24th . A good result for the ad made by CLM (of which 'The supplier' for Pepsi Cola has also been approved). Among the 264 French TV ads, only 12 reached this stage of the competition: for example, ads for Williams, Manix, Air Liberté, Sida Info Service…

The firm from Cannes which wan the Hispasat D market and the one of four big satellites for GE Americom is now recruiting.

President of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), whose European pole is settled at the INRIA, Sophia Antipolis; Jean-François Abramatic was elected Vice-President, Ilog R&D director. The company Ilog, which manufactures software components, is supervised by Pierre Haren. Jean-François Abramatic, one of the most famous French people dealing with the web is a doctor of Paris VI University and engineer of Ecole des Mines of Nancy.

A young firm from Antibes, settled at Cap d’Antibes, Photographique 360.com SARL, has decided to deal with 360° pictures. Jocelyn Passeron and Guillaume Ferreboeuf who are two web designers and Rebecca Cutter (public relationships), propose to take 360° pictures for CD-roms or web sites. There is already an example of pictures in a web site for a Juan-les-Pins restaurant (louciapan.com), whereas in the firm own site Photographique360.com, a panel of pictures helps people to see what the result is in a flat, a boat, in the country side etc. Further information in the site.

Weekly charters flights from May to September to Monastir in Tunisia (planned by the tour operators Couleur Locale and Etape Nouvelle) and to Palma in Spain (Plein Vent and Fram), three departures to Marrakech (Fram) and to Egypt (Plein Vent) : that is new for Nice airport. Well, for years, there were arrivals of charters coming from Canada during the summer. But on the contrary, charters departures dedicated to the local clientele that want to travel were almost totally unknown in Nice.

August is not finished but business tourism has already begun. Nice-Acropolis which has realized a wonderful year 2000, hosts from today the Inter Noise Congress with 1,200 participants coming from 46 countries throughout the world. Until Wednesday, they will discuss about new techniques to control noise.In Cannes, there will be from August 30th a huge automobiles launching.

'What charges the trading account of a firm is not the rate of the trade income tax but it is the amount of what is taken!'

Historical partner, the INA (national institute for audiovisual) has retired. The Monte-Carlo television Festival will organize the meeting alone. But the 20th Imagina will not take place in January 2001.

The figures of the Ceram entrance examinations which were published at the beginning of the month were around 2,500 applicants. They were those who had passed the written part of the exam. The number of applicants for the written part was 3,418 people from HEC preparatory classes (High Trade Studies) and 3,331 applicants registered on Passerelle 1 for first school year and 879 others registered on Passerelle 2 for second year.The examinations which usually take place in June confirmed the new boom of the Sophia trade school.

Ouvert en juillet, le Grimaldi Forum joue à fond Internet et télécoms : European IT (11 au 13 septembre), Monaco Net Show (20 au 22 septembre) et Commslive Europe en novembre.

The organizers as well as the contributors come from the firm circle : it is a chance that all the famous people dealing with microelectronics meet in Sophia.'

Tourism chief executive officer in Cannes, Henri Céran has been chosen to become the CFTAR (French club of business tourism) president. The Club is the most important one coming from Maison de la France with an 11 million francs budget. The office and the director have as a mission to draw the business tourism strategy of Maison de la France Great-Britain, Italy, Germany, USA and soon Belgium and the Netherlands. Among the priorities: studies of professional exhibitions, public relationships operations, marketing, promotion operations…

A firm settled in Biot will have to pay a 12.5% trade income tax rate, whereas another on the other side of the pavement will have a 20.5% trade income tax rate to pay. A real stupidity in the technopole!

Président du World Wide Web Consortion (W3C) dont le pôle européen se trouve installé à l'INRIA de Sophia Antipolis, /www.w3.org/People/Abramatic">Jean-François Abramatica été nommé vice-président, directeur de la recherche et du développement de la société Ilog. Cette société, qui est l'un des ténors du secteur de la fabrication de composants pour logiciels, est présidée par Pierre Haren.