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 OmnÚs.
"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 OmnÚs.

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.

http://www.spie.com