Yves de Talhouet, CEO of Hewlett Packard France

Why did you chose to settle in France?

Hewlett Packard (HP) decided to settle in the southeast of France back in 1971 in Grenoble. We selected this region because of its very high high tech content and its very good infrastructure.

What are the advantages of the region?

The advantages of the southeast of France are, number one, the great universities, providing plenty of very high level resources that we can hire. The second advantage is its high tech orientation, which provides a very good platform in which we have anchored our activities. For instance, there are two major research centres, one in Grenoble and one in Sophia. The third advantage revolves around infrastructure. There is very good access by road, good electricity and good housing.

What are your next projects?

Our development strategy really focuses on services, mostly services to our corporate clients, and we have recently invested more than USD10 million in a data centre in Lyon, which exemplifies this strategy.