PARIS, September 24 /PRNewswire/ --
- SPIE Group Creates an Interactive Web Island Where the Game Gets Serious*
On an imaginary island 12 km long and 9 km wide, SPIE conjures up an entertaining, interactive environment illustrating all its business activities and setting new standards in the field. This engineering and services group has been developing a wide range of innovative e-communication features on the Internet for two years now. And the fully 3D virtual universe of MySPIE is its latest, multimedia communication tool.
To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/myspie/35112/
With the official launch of the "MySPIE" website (http://www.myspie.eu) on September 23, the SPIE Group offers an original and exciting insight into its various activities for the benefit of all interested parties. The watchwords for this new website are high-quality graphic environment, rich-media contents, interactiveness, user-friendliness, open-endedness and easy-to-use interface. The aims of this interactive 3D island are to give customers a clearer picture of SPIE's many business fields as European leader in electrical engineering and to explain the various professions exercised by our personnel in order to help recruit more than 3,000 new employees every year. MySPIE is a ground-breaking initiative in the field of corporate communication for large groups providing services for local authorities and businesses. Specially created by Bee-Buzziness, this fully 3D virtual universe will boost our renown as a fast-growing group, and clarify our image and offering while also bolstering our dynamic recruitment policy.
The attractions of an island
Board a helicopter bound for an offshore oil platform, carry out maintenance work in a nuclear power plant, overfly a wind farm construction site, watch an airliner being built, travel at the speed of light through an optical fibre, or get an x-ray view of the technical networks and systems in a high-rise building, along a motorway or in a city. MySPIE reveals the hidden sides of our surroundings in our modern world and takes you on a tour of SPIE's professional trades. All you have to do is click.
"People rarely stop to think that behind many everyday actions - such as phoning, switching on a light, heating a room, or taking a plane, train or bus - there are complex systems that SPIE works on, day in day out. In partnership with their customers, our teams design, install, operate, maintain and upgrade those systems which regulate our everyday lives and help us to live better together," says SPIE Communications Director Pascal Omnès. "The 'serious game'* approach adopted for MySPIE is an ideal, simple way of describing our wide range of technical professions that are not always visible or easy to understand, even from inside the company."
The island already features dozens of possible scenarios and shows the great diversity of services the Group provides for its customers. It should be noted that MySPIE offers a degree of user-friendliness rarely matched on the web, with an interface that adapts to the size and resolution of the Internet user's screen as well as providing full HD display for users whose hardware supports it.
The island of recruitment
SPIE employees work in a wide variety of fields including local authorities, energy, infrastructures, the commercial sector and industry. "Our fields of activity extend far beyond the bounds of electrical engineering, and this calls for a wide range of skills," points out Thierry Smagghe, SPIE's Director of Human Resources. "MySPIE is the perfect complement to our traditional recruitment tools as it responds to our future employees' desire to visualise our professions and their working environments in a simple, concrete manner." MySPIE provides the Group's future employees, whether they have recently graduated or already have working experience, with an ideal opportunity to discover professional fields where they can optimise their skills and achieve job satisfaction.
e-communication at SPIE: really a virtual archipelago
MySPIE represents a major achievement in the implementation of SPIE's e-communication strategy. A series of innovations followed one after another with the development of the group's new identity launched in 2006: new websites, high-definition on-line photo library, webcast by Jean-Marc Jancovici on energy and global warming, on-line virtual library, etc. The innovation immediately preceding MySPIE was the virtual version of the 2007 annual report, first annual report drawn up by a company genuinely fully embodying the principles of sustainable development: entirely based on voice synthesis and offering an unparalleled print-on-demand service.
As a result of this dematerialisation policy, there has been an increase in the use and reading of the group's documentation owing to the new possibilities offered by virtual reality technologies and also a reduction in the use of paper. This reflects strong demand from the general public which is aware of the necessity of sustainable development.
"In every sector of the economy where SPIE plays a part, its role is to provide its customers with the best technology to support them in their development. In the field of communication too, we are endeavouring to develop approaches and tools in keeping with that ambition, so as to provide the best for all our readers," explains Pascal Omnès.
MySPIE illustrates the group's desire to enhance the world around us and contribute to its development. Consequently, the aim is to keep improving MySPIE and to regularly enrich it with new contents and functions, and to equip it with a real-time 3D engine in the near future so that Internet users can wander more freely around its island.
About SPIE
As a specialist in electrical, mechanical and HVAC engineering, energy, communications and infrastructure, SPIE enhances the world around us and contributes to its development by helping local and regional authorities and companies design, build, operate and maintain their facilities.
With more than 27,000 employees working from nearly 400 locations in 28 countries, SPIE provides advanced technical services and solutions to meet the current and future challenges of both local and international customers.
In 2007, SPIE achieved sales of EUR3.46 billion and generated a trading profit of EUR137.5 million.
About Bee-Buzziness
Bee-Buzziness innovates, creates and develops Web 2.0 technologies and contents for the purposes of companies' sales, communication and marketing strategies.
With its development of 3D project management, Bee-Buzziness created a new field of expertise that has now become a vital addition to its know-how in the management of companies' digital assets.
To create its Beevirtua 3.0 virtualisation tool suite, Bee-Buzziness focused on the usual value of technologies for the fields of communication and marketing. After completing seven years' R&D conducted in operational contexts, Bee-Buzziness will present all the innovations achieved in its technological areas and their implementation at the end of 2008.
MySPIE technical data
Bee-Buzziness developed MySPIE on a completely insourced basis, integrating Web 2.0 technologies and the most recent proven development techniques: Microsoft Windows 2003 64 bit server and computer technologies, Visual Studio 2008 development environment for server technologies with DotNet Framework 3.0, rich client development on Adobe Flex 3.0, vector interface, H264 HD video encoding, Autodesk 3DSMAX 2009 3D production technologies, Adobe Creative Suite post-production tools, sound processing on Korg Oasys synthesis station.
All its developments were conducted using object technologies with short, iterative development cycles to ensure a high level of open-endedness and integration of the interface and the MySPIE server system. In the near future, MySPIE's real-time multimedia capabilities will be further increased with a new video and audio streaming server media.
By drawing on video game development techniques, all MySPIE's 3D objects were designed with a view to integrating them with a real-time 3D engine which will greatly increase this website's possibilities and interactive experiences.
* Serious game: an entertaining simulation of any complex corporate context aimed at Internet users.
Press Contacts: Agence Droit Devant, Philippe Hériard, Tél. : +33(0)1-45-77-02-45, heriard@droitdevant.fr. SPIE SA: Pascal Omnès, Communications Director, Tél. : +33-(0)1-34-22-58-21, pascal.omnes@spie.com
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