(AOF) – Claranova announces that its subsidiary Avanquest has started discussions with several potential investors for the sale of its non-strategic activities in Europe. The company, which manages several majority stakes in technological groups, specifies that this sale concerns activities “with a lower margin, which have become non-strategic”, positioned in less buoyant and losing markets, which “represent only a turnover of ‘total business of about 12 million dollars’. Discussions will continue in June.
“In accordance with our strategy, we are continuing to rationalize Avanquest’s businesses and wish to separate ourselves from activities that are now far removed from our core business”, declares Eric Gareau, CEO of Avanquest. “We remain resolutely committed to the development of proprietary products and services in the PDF, Security and Photo segments sold in the form of subscriptions as growth drivers”.
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European cloud players file complaint against Microsoft
These groups have benefited from a jump in their activity of 167% over the last five years. However, their share in the European cloud fell from 27% to 13% over the period. That of Amazon, Microsoft and Google has jumped from 46% to 72%, according to Synergy Research. The European leader, SAP, is only in seventh place with only 2% of the market.
European players accuse Microsoft, the world’s number one cloud provider, of taking advantage of its position as a software publisher and cloud service provider to force its software customers to switch to its services if they want to migrate to the cloud. Despite recent announcements from Microsoft to calm things down, European players are offering to test its compliance with the ten principles of fair software licensing established by Cigref, the French association of the main digital customers.