France, for a Moment, Becomes Focus of Digital Optimism

PARIS — Eric E. Schmidt of Google and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France acted like old friends. Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer at Chanel, introduced a new fashion brand, available online only. The Ting Tings gave a private concert at the Louvre for a gathering of the global digerati.

For a few days last week, it seemed that France had stopped worrying and learned to love the Internet.

Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, demonstrated Silicon Valley’s proficiency at multitasking, shuttling between Brussels, where he met with European Commission antitrust regulators, and Paris, where he opened the U.S. Internet giant’s new headquarters for southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Google’s move, from nondescript quarters into a palatial building that once served as the headquarters for a French railroad, is the most visible sign of the company’s campaign to woo Mr. Sarkozy and other French politicians, who have often complained about the disruptive effects of the company’s technology.

All that, Mr. Sarkozy said last week, is “the past.”

“Why am I here?” he said during a talk with Mr. Schmidt to mark the opening of the site. “Why, as president, have I come to Google? It’s a big deal. It wasn’t easy. But I greatly admire American vitality. I have been criticized enough.”

The good feelings, at least as they were expressed publicly, seemed to be mutual, with a beaming Mr. Schmidt declaring at one Paris appearance: “We love France.”

According to Mr. Schmidt, the bonhomie extended to Brussels, where he met with Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the European Commission. Mr. Almunia is leading an antitrust investigation of Google, looking into complaints that the company has abused its dominant position in the Internet search market. Far from being adversarial, Mr. Schmidt said, the tone of the talks was “very pleasant.”

Since the investigation was opened last year, Google has stepped up its efforts to demonstrate its contributions to the French, as well as the European, economy. The new Paris headquarters, acquired at a reported cost of €100 million, or $134 million, will house a new international cultural institute and a research and development center in its 10,000 square meters, or 110,000 square feet.

Mr. Schmidt wasted few opportunities to point out that, at a time when the European economy is being dragged down by a debt crisis, the technology industry is one of the few potential sources of growth. Google has said it is in the process of hiring dozens of people in France, where it already has more than 300 employees, and hundreds more across Europe.

Mr. Schmidt also found time to drop by LeWeb, a technology conference that took place in a suburb of Paris, where the atmosphere was similarly upbeat. At various times, the stage was taken over by dancers, a magician and even a man who had run the Tokyo marathon with a Rube Goldberg-style device that helped him carry four iPhones, a laptop computer and other technology, all of which enabled him to broadcast the entire race live over the Internet, from multiple angles.

Mr. Lagerfeld, the fashion designer, also disclosed a love for technology — or, at least, for the accessorizing potential of certain kinds of gadgets. In an appearance at LeWeb, he said he had no time for e-mail, but added that he owns dozens of iPhones, iPads and iPods.

Natalie Massenet, founder of the online retailer Net-A-Porter, said her company planned to introduce a new fashion brand in partnership with Mr. Lagerfeld. The brand, called Karl, will become available in January, she said.

Much of LeWeb seemed to be devoted to extolling the potential of “social local mobile” technology — known as SoLoMo. Examples include services like Foursquare, a mobile application that can help people round up their friends on bar crawls.

George Colony, chief executive of Forrester Research, went so far as to declare that the World Wide Web, as used on a PC running a browser, was a “dying technology.” Mobile applications, running on smartphones and other devices, are the future, he said. If there was a familiar ring to this idea, it may have been because many of the presenters at LeWeb — and a not insignificant portion of the audience — had flown in from Silicon Valley, where the “death of the Web” is already an old chestnut.

Many of the presenters made no secret of their purpose at LeWeb: to try to raise funds. While venture capitalists in the Valley might have heard their pitches before, there were at least a few European moneybags in attendance, too.

Niklas Zennstrom, a co-founder of Skype, picked up on a comment by Mr. Schmidt, who had said at LeWeb that he thought it would be good if a rival to Silicon Valley might emerge elsewhere in the world. Mr. Zennstrom, a Swede, said that more than half of the investments by the venture capital firm he runs, Atomico, were in Europe, though he added that he was looking elsewhere, too.

“Every day, the likelihood of great companies coming from other places around the world is increasing,” he said. “If you look ahead five years, the growth won’t be in Europe or the United States, but in emerging markets.”

Liz Alderman contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/technology/12iht-leweb12.html?partner=rss&emc=rss