For first time in Lisbon 6-9 November the 2016 Web Summit was held in the Portuguese capital instead of Dublin, Ireland. “Europe’s largest technology marketplace” claims to have attracted more than 53 000 attendees, 7000 CEOs, 15 000 companies from 166 countries. Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, General Electric, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsung, Twitter, were all major participants.

« E-export » was one of the two main topics of the 2nd International SME Forum in France, organized from 14 June by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and attended by some 400 small and medium-sized businesses. The event highlighted the strengths and weaknesses in France in terms of e-export. In October, another series of events was organized to introduce a group of digital technology start-ups to potential clients in China.

Engineering360 has published its 2016 edition of “The Industrial Buy Cycle” this October. It looks extensively at how engineers buy goods and services worldwide, including from business to business on the internet. The study is concise (19p.), well written, clear and matter of fact, well illustrated with apposite understandable graphed data.

The CEO of American computer giant CISCO was on the French media front lately announcing major investments in the country, following a deal with the government earlier this year and another with French electronic security giant Thales.

Presenting your products to an audience of international BtoB buyers is now key to developing your business. Via its latest service, EUROPAGES now lets you easily fill in your Product Pages yourself.

Amazon, the giant Seattle-based internet retail trader has announced several developments in France. Amazon France is one of the ten existing national retail trading websites. Amazon France announced on October 4 the plan for its fifth, largest French distribution centre at Bowes, near Amiens. The new premises will be completed by 2017 and should generate 750 jobs, of which 500 directly on site. The new premises will measure 107,000 m²

With the launch of the “e-Trade for all” initiative last July by the Unctad, figures were published that underscore the importance of B2B e-commerce. These figures show that the United States are way ahead in the world’s top ten. Detailed figures.

Last week saw Britain announcing at long last the schedule for Brexit – to start before April next and end in 2019. Latest trade figures (July) show that four out of Britain’s five top export destinations were EU member nations. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also warned in Birmingham that business confidence would be on “a bit of a roller coaster” during the negotiations. And the International Monetary Fund has reiterated its sombre view of the consequences of Brexit for world economic growth.

The purchase of digital social network LinkedIn, familiar to most professionals as a job-networking pioneer, by Microsoft (MS), the unavoidable computer giant with its operating system and “Office” software package, for $26.2 billion last June, was its biggest acquisition to date.

Europages has been acquired by German investment fund Paragon Partners, which also owns the “Wer liefert was” (WLW) German B2B online marketplace. The alliance between these two leaders will lead to a range of B2B digital solutions on Europe’s growth markets. This means that Europages’ customers will benefit from even greater visibility and a level of traffic beyond compare. Read on.