White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 9Zetel; SeaSoft S.p.A is a software house, which collaborates with the CERN and theItalian National Nuclear Physics Laboratory; and SistemiData S.p.A. and S.T.S. s.r.l. areleaders in software for engineering and labour accounting.Etna Valley silicon provides employment for around 4,000 people and has generatedinduced consumption. The most striking example is the induced business created byStMicroelectronics: many local firms now supply the company with gas and equipmentfor making microchips, which had previously come from Milan or Germany. There areestimated to be over 1,000 micro-firms operating in this sector.The pioneer in the Catania industrial zone, STMicroelectronics N.V., is an Italo-Frenchcompany headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland), producing semiconductor electroniccomponents. It was created in 1987 from the merger of Società Generale diSemiconduttori (SGS), an IRI-owned microelectronic company, and the semiconductordivision of the French group Thomson.The company is currently the fifth world producer of semiconductor electroniccomponents, mainly used in consumer electronics, automobiles, computer peripherals,mobile telephones and the so-called “Industrial” area.The multinational, which recorded net profits of 10 billion dollars in 2007, has fivemain operations areas: Communications (37%), Consumer (17%), Computer (16%),Automotive (15%) and Industrial (15%).In the Nintendo Wii remote controller, for example, an accelerometer produced bySTMicroelectronics enables users to identify the position of the controller in threedimensionalspace. The transponder for the Italian electronic motorway toll collectionsystem (Telepass), positioned on vehicle dashboards is also produced by ST.72.4% of ST is quoted on the Milan, Paris and New York stock exchanges. Theremaining capital is controlled by: the French multinational Areva (10.9%), depositsavings and loans (10.1%) and Finmeccanica (6.6%).The group has around 50,000 employees,16 advanced research and developmentcentres, 39 design and application centres,15 principal manufacturing facilities and 78sales offices in 36 countries.The situation appears even moreparadoxical, considering that within thecultural and creative industries, thesoftware industry is the third sector interms of percentage of value addedover GDP and in terms of percentagejobs (both 1.17%) xxxix .The production system thus does seemto have a base on which to graft thecreation of a coherent and systematicsupply side, at present inadequatebecause of weak growth in demand.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 217