CS centers of technological excellence enable it to deliver innovative, turnkey solutions to its customers, and to ensure performance and continuity for their systems and infrastructures.

Expertise and innovation

Anticipate changing skills and the needs of our customers, in France and abroad, spotlight our know-how and abilities on the basis of our operational references, extend those capabilities to cover future needs, identify reusable products and pass on the information, and single out strategic partners who strengthen our hand in the construction of future, innovative systems that are competitive and reliable – these are the stakes in a world where complexity and sophistication rush head-on into the future.

An experts' network

Acknowledged for the expertise of its co-workers, CS deploys a network of 200 experts and specialists whose mission is to advise and bring to customers the technological solutions that are best adapted to their needs and perspectives.

Research and development

The R&D activity at CS is adapted to its positioning as a mission critical systems integrator whose competitive difference is a strong capacity for technological innovation. R&D thus represents 5 percent of revenues of which 0.7 percent is cash flow. R&D objectives are to maintain development methodologies at the best level in the industry, to acquire differentiating technological components, and to accompany CS large customers in their strategic programs.

In 2006, the R&D activity mainly focused on different stakes in homeland security, intelligent transportation systems, the business of scientific and technico-operational simulation, and software engineering for real-time missioncritical applications. This resulted in significant innovations, based on virtual-reality technologies, Open Source programming, the Internet Protocol (IP) in mission critical environments, and security and safety in operations. Consequently in 2006, 10 patents and 10 software programs were registered.

In support of these projects, CS participates upstream in developing technical standards and contributes to the committees of the international bodies concerned, in particular, for the introduction of IP technologies in aviation navigation (European open sky project, SESAR), for embedded mission-critical software in aeronautics, and for short-range hyper-frequency links defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In 2006, CS was involved in 23 European projects.

In 2006, CS further contributed to competitive clusters of international stature, approved by the CIADT (Comité interministériel de l'aménagement et du développement du territoire, or French interministerial committee for land use and development):

• SYSTEM@TIC in the Paris region. CS is a major industrial partner of the cluster, devoted to complex systems and software. CS manages the IOLS project (Infrastructures et Outils Logiciels pour la Simulation, or infrastructures and software tools for simulation) for development and optimization of simulation software necessary for the analysis, design, and optimization of increasingly complex, innovative products and systems.

• Aerospace Valley in the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine regions, operates in the fields of aeronautics, space and embedded systems. CS coordinates the Es-Pass consortium (for the project, OVALIE), which develops test tools using static analysis of mission critical embedded software, and has the objective of introducing new technologies to the industrial process of missioncritical systems development.

• Cancer research, biotechnology and health, at the Cancéropôle in the Midi-Pyrenees and Limousine regions, focus on the fight against cancer. CS and IBM are partnering on the Cancéropôle site to set up a shared, cross-structural service platform, dedicated to competitiveness.

• Sea, security, safety and sustainable development, in the Paris-Alps-French Riviera regions, is a field where CS and its subsidiary Diginext are involved directly in homeland security and more particularly in close-in protection systems for persons, goods and installations in a high-value zone for maritime operations. This activity, in the maritime segment, forms part of the overall development strategy of CS in homeland security.

• TES (Transactions Electroniques Sécurisées, or e-secure transactions) in the Normandy region offers an opportunity for CS to contribute to wireless security.