Charles Consel
- 47 years old
- Researcher at INRIA
- Founder of Sidérion technologies
 Why did you go into this start-up venture?
Charles Consel: It all started in 1993. As a professor at the University of Rennes I, I set up the INRIA Compose team. Ever since my thesis at Paris VI in 1989, my research had been on the area of programming. At Rennes, I broadened my field of work by studying programming languages linking to particular sectors, or “sector-languages”. Carrying on, upon my arrival in Bordeaux in 2000, I set up ENSEIRB’s telecom department and then launched a research project in collaboration with the INRIA Phoenix team in the field of IP telephony. At that time, hardly anyone was interested in this topic. We thus quickly pulled ahead of the competition and put together VisuCom. We had already contacted commercial enterprises to provide us with support in starting up other projects. The feedback on our demonstrations was enthusiastic: we were asked to put our product on the market. So we called on business developers in order to give the project credibility and one of them finally joined our team. Our press release in January 2008 announcing the creation of Siderion made a tremendous impact. I hope not to be sticking my neck out too far by saying that things have gotten off to a great start and we have huge growth potential.
How did that happen? How can one say that the technology you are offering meets current needs?
Charles Consel: Many people have told us that our technology was a breakthrough that had no equivalent, while still fitting in with existing solutions. Thanks to the sector-languages approach, our product is the only one capable of providing call-routing services while guaranteeing that the platform is robust. But it’s not due to the fact that the innovation is there, with identified needs, that things get easier. It took us some time to understand that we also had to prove our worth, that we were serious. An in-depth effort was needed to show that VisuCom had everything required to stand on its own two feet in the marketplace.
Does this groundwork give you reason to believe that financial players will be interested in your technology?
Charles Consel: Yes. That is, moreover, exactly why we wanted to get involved, for example, in the national competition to support start-ups and innovative technologies. Trying to get funding without having first done our homework would have meant putting the cart before the horse. Through our marketing analysis, we first sought to make fruitful contacts while at the same time trying to raise financing. These two aspects were pursued simultaneously. Which is not to say that we have turned down any and all government support. It is very likely that our first financing group will include both private and institutional investors. We will, moreover, soon be able to breathe more easily: the signing is due to take place in the next few weeks. |
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Sidérion technologies in brief
 Publisher
of software solutions for applicative telephony
Siderion, a start-up developed by INRIA Futurs in Bordeaux, was created in May 2007. Its goal: to market a telephony technology developed by researchers at the Phoenix EPI directed by Charles Consel, professor at the École nationale supérieure d’électronique, d'informatique et de radiocommunications [National Electronics, Computational and Radio Communications Institute] in Bordeaux (ENSEIRB).
This INRIA team, which includes doctoral student Fabien Latry (current technical manager) among its ranks, has developed a call-routing technology. It adapts a telephony platform to the needs of an individual or group of users, regardless of their structure.
The start-up received funding from the Aquitaine regional incubator (IRA). In January, it also hired a business developer, Stéphane Mahmoudi, to perform technical and marketing analysis. Contacts were made with telecom operators, access providers, equipment suppliers and small-business enterprises, who would serve as intermediaries with eventual end-user customers. As the result of this communication strategy and of an astute analysis of the market, Siderion is proceeding to lock in its first financing group.
About the Technology
 The access provided by IP telephony (VOIP) at the beginning of this century gave Charles Consel an opportunity to apply the technologies he had been developing since the 1990s and to invent still others. Information systems offer the possibility of creating services to customize telephony platforms, but they also make them more vulnerable to bugs. This creates a double need: knowledge of how to program these services correctly, but without making the platform vulnerable. VisuCom, a graphic design studio for telephony service, was born to meet these needs. The result is a graphic interface where each icon represents a specific way to process a call. However intuitive its use may seem, perfecting the system requires substantial expertise and command of the concepts of sector-programming languages. VisuCom’s main function is to be an engine for interconnection rules with several computer-based modules (datebooks, calendar, contact list, etc.). The call-routing rules (depending on the hour and caller number, for example) can thus be applied to best advantage via the telephony platform. Lastly, VisuCom uses another kind of know-how developed by Charles Consel’s team: program verification. Complete development of this work took more than six years.
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