OVHcloud, the European leader in cloud computing, announced that it has acquired BuyDRM, Inc., an American company specializing in security technologies for digital rights management (DRM) applications. The entire BuyDRM team and its founders have joined the Group's workforce to build together a single roadmap dedicated to security. BuyDRM's expertise will be seamlessly integrated into all of OVHcloud solutions.
Michel Paulin, (CEO of OVHcloud) recently spoke with Erwan Morice on the French television show Le Grand Journal De l'Eco about the company's acquisition of BuyDRM and the company's future plans. You can watch the full video interview in French below or download a .pdf of the transcript in English here.
Michel Paulin (OVHcloud): OVHcloud acquires BuyDRM - 07/27
This Tuesday, July 27, Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud, talked about purchasing BuyDRM by his company in the program Le Grand Journal de l'Éco hosted by Erwan Morice. You can watch or listen to Le Grand Journal de l'Éco from Monday to Friday on BFM Business.
0:04 TV host: Le Grand Journal de l’Éco on BFM Business.
0:05 TV host: And we will talk about Cloud with OVH, the European company that has reinforced its know-how in security by acquiring the American company BuyDRM, which specializes in encryption.
We will discuss it with Michel Paulin. Good evening!
0:18 Michel Paulin: Good evening!
0:18 TV host: Thank you for joining us, CEO of OVHcloud! Michel Paulin, please, remind us about the meaning of this acquisition for your group. Is security at the heart of your development now more than ever?
0:32 Michel Paulin: Yes, it's one of the main pillars of the development. We are sure that judging by the examples we can see everything linked with security, encryption and data protection proves to be very important nowadays. So, it seemed to us that it was a natural thing to do to reinforce it. We are very happy to have purchased this American company that specializes in encryption, data protection particularly for the Mass Media.
0:58 TV host: Michel Paulin, are we talking about the purchase in the amount of a few hundred million euros?
1:03 Michel Paulin: No, as you know at this stage I can't give you this information.
1:13 TV host: But could you give us any idea?
1:16 Michel Paulin: It was certainly a purchase aimed at the extremely robust and elaborate technology. And we have had this strategy of purchasing for a while now, as we already made 2 acquisitions during the last year: one in the USA and one in France. These companies are often startups or quite small ones, but they have a very efficient technology. So, we are very happy to collaborate with this American company that will bring us an additional "brick" for the evolution of our PaaS (Platform as a Service), that we will have in the coming months after 80 services are going to be available to our clients.
1:53 TV host: So, BuyDRM is a specialist in the encryption and security. Michel Paulin, if we focus on the security component, which clients do you wish to attract from now on? What is your goal, your priority?
2:10 Michel Paulin: You know that there had been historically that focus on technology clients, those who were born in the epoch of technologies, but in the few recent years we have turned to the companies from the public sector, large accounts, small or medium ones. And the goal is also to simplify the life of such companies that often have ancient applications, so called "legacy" in jargon, they will "migrate" to the club. So for us it is about combining the solution with another solution that we will integrate into our platform to allow large accounts from the public sector, small and medium companies to benefit from the advantages of the club. This tendency is going very strong. And just to give you some numbers. At the moment the market is close to 50 billion dollars. And the growth fluctuates from 20 to 25% each year. So, it's a big market. The market of the club in Europe will be bigger than Telecom before 2025.
3:14: TV host: Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud, there is this threat when it comes to announcements of agenda. Orange, France, has chosen Smart Cloud from the American company Palo Alto Networks to secure its operations in the Cloud around the world. When you see it, do you tell yourself "Maybe we would like to avoid it"?
3:33 Michel Paulin: We have a very clear position when it comes to it today. There is more to the data than just being stored somewhere. There is this strategic, economic and ethical issue. So today OVHcloud markets itself as open, versatile, it shows trust. The company protects data, personal data. As for the strategic issue it takes into account the US and Chinese markets. Today OVHcloud is very proud to be the leader at the European level. We are very motivated to provide European solutions. We have purchased the American company and we are not ashamed of it in any way.
4:22: TV host: So, you have purchased this American company. Do you have your personal goal to provide with more comprehensive range of offers in order to have more advantages for the US market?
4:34 Michel Paulin: We aim at spreading our offering in such domains as Platform as a Service, security. We already have strong partnerships such as that with Thales when it comes to encryption and protection. A few months ago we became partners with Mobi, DB to have what we call "service database", the database which is completely managed and supported. We have also signed an agreement with Google Cloud. So, yes, we aim at increasing our basic portfolio of services. In a few weeks we will have over 80 services. And it proves that we can offer trustworthy, competitive solutions today that will let us grow even further. We are sure of it.
5:20: TV host: You have come to the stage that your growth will now involve more acquisitions. Are there any other purchases happening now?
5:28 Michel Paulin: We have always told ourselves that we will make purchases we have been aiming at either in the sphere of technologies to enhance our portfolio of solutions or in the domain of assets / clients’ portfolios. It has always been part of our strategy and we have noted that like in case of the Stock Exchange project we will continue making more purchases, as it will allow us to move even faster and to speed up our growth.
5:58 TV host: And to finish as for the stock market, Michel Paulin, you were talking about the IPO of OVHcloud to be expected before the end of the year. Is it getting clearer? Can we have a more exact date of this IPO?
6:12 Michel Paulin: No, you are not going to have the scoop with the precise date. However, we have decided that we are going to do this IPO, sign the market conditions, make project announcements and complete this process until the end of the year, because growth is still a project. And we totally comply with this project.
6:27 TV host: Thank you so much Michel Paulin for being our guest tonight at BFM Business. CEO of OVHcloud.
Tape on screen
0:06 Find Good morning business on RMC BFM Play.
0:29 OVHcloud acquires BuyDRM
01:18 Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud
5:33 OVHcloud: other purchases coming next?
6:11 OVHcloud: what about the IPO?
