Triptych Concepts Limited

By MAX COLCHESTER

PARIS—A technology consortium funded by the French government unveiled multimedia search tools Thursday, as part of a scaled-back attempt to challenge the dominance of U.S. search engines.

Quaero, which was set up two years ago, showed off software that converts spoken language into written text; a program that synchronizes electronic books to audio books; and an automatic translation device which turns German into English (though not into French).

“If you want to respond to the U.S. technological invasion, then you have to master your own technology,” says Pieter van der Linden, chief co-coordinator of the Quaero project. But he said the aim was to create specialist applications and encourage research in the sector, rather than replace existing search engines. “Quaero is not about creating a single search engine with a name like Quaero.com. It’s about sharing resources.”

The project was started four years ago by the French and German governments, and then-President Jacques Chirac said they would “take up the global challenge posed by Google and Yahoo!” The venture was christened Quaero – Latin for “I seek.”

The thinking was that Internet users would increasingly search audio and video clips for content, much as they now search for words. In keeping with the French “dirigiste” approach to business, the government, not the private sector, spearheaded the project. Mr. Chirac even saw it as similar to the Airbus project, the airplane manufacturer that includes both France and Germany.

However, Germany quietly pulled out of the project in 2007 because it disagreed with the French plan to push for a multimedia search system, rather than a better text-based search system. France set up the consortium in 2008 with a five-year budget of €199 million ($242.6 million), half from the French state and the other half from private partners, including France Telecom SA and media-technology group Technicolor SA.

Quaero groups some 26 partners, mostly French businesses and universities, who share research. The government hopes Quaero will nurture smaller French technology companies. So far, the software is aimed at the French market.

“We support it because it promotes skills within France,” says Dominique Dubuisson, the deputy head of Industrial strategic innovation at the government investment fund Oseo. “The aim is to accelerate collaboration and development.”

For example, Exalead SA, a French software provider and a member of Quaero, used its partners’ expertise to create a program that searches for keywords in a video. It then turns the sounds into text, which can be searched for a keyword. This technology is now being used on the French President’s Web site.

Many other programs are still being developed, and some will be available for commercial use.

Google launched a similar program called Google Audio Indexing two years ago but hasn’t yet come out with an application. A spokesman couldn’t immediately comment.

“It’s hard to grow in Europe,” says Jean-Marc Lazard, the head of strategic projects at Exalead. “The project helped speed our development and grow abroad.” The company has just opened an office in San Francisco, he says.

Ms. Dubuisson says that she doesn’t know if Oseo will get back any of the €99 million it invested, but hopes some of the smaller companies will generate profit in 2011.

As for challenging Google, as the French government wanted to do, Quaero’s current managers have more modest ambitions than Mr. Chirac. When the former President said France was going to take on Google, says Mr. van der Linden, he and other politicians “oversimplified the message.”

Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com