1997-1999: From the Biocomputing lab spin-off to the technology showcase
MASA Group started as a center of technological excellence, spin-off in 1996 of the Biocomputing lab of the ENS-Ulm, one of the most prestigious scientific universities in Paris. Our vision was to learn from real life processes in order to bring “life-like” solutions to problems that engineers could not solve with traditional approaches. This idea is still at the heart of our business, 10 years later.
From start, MASA Group developed a three-stage launch strategy:
- Development of a revolutionary artificial intelligence engine, DirectIA, allowing to model high-level decisional processes more efficiently than traditional AI approaches.
Setup of a breakthrough technology showcase, Conflict Zone, an innovative real-time strategy video game, released by Ubisoft in 2001, and sold to 250,000 copies. This was an extrodinary success for a new kind of game, empowering players with the help of DirectIA driven commanding agents. This achievement in the game industry proved that DirectIA was both extremely powerful and efficient, running on very demanding game platforms, such as Sony PlayStation2.- First steps into the military world were possible during the development of Conflict Zone. This realistic game providing MASA Group teams with the unique opportunity to study the behavior of military units on the battlefield, aka their doctrine. This careful modeling of military decisional processes strongly differentiated Conflict Zone from the other games that were available on the market at that time.
2000-2002: From the technology showcase to the first service contracts
From the successful experience of Conflict Zone, MASA Group started offering training systems to organizations relying on doctrine information or "documented decisional processes". Two main markets, Defense (wargames) and Corporate (professional training), were explored at that time, resulting in the signature of important service contracts:
- Manager's Studio in 2001, with the Cegos, the European leader in management consulting and training, a project directly proposed by MASA Group to train project managers at directing complex team projects.
- SCIPIO in 2002, with the French Army (represented by its procurement agency, the DGA), an ambitious project to deliver the Army next-generation brigade- and division-level command post training system, realized in co-contracting with Thales Communications.
For both projects, it was necessary to provide a full constructive simulation and model the behaviors of the various non-player characters, either company employees (at the "entity-level") or military units (at the "aggregated-level"), in order to reduce the number of human operators necessary to run a training session.
MASA Group decisional artificial intelligence engine, DirectIA was perfectly fit to the task and provided immediate benefits. For example, in the case of SCIPIO, the use of autonomous agents allowed an immediate reduction by 30% of the number of human operators previously needed, while improving the quality and diversity of the training scenarios.
2003-2006: From service contracts to software products
Our first service contracts were brilliant successes. Both Manager's Studio (since 2004) and SCIPIO (since 2006) are still in use. Learning from this experience, we understood that it was interesting to provide to our customers two kinds of complementary products:
- Packaged simulation software, all-in-one solutions for either constructive or virtual training.
- Behavior models, decisional artificial intelligence content for enriching existing simulations, capitalizing on the immense experience gathered by MASA Group behavior design teams over the years.
The Defense market was a natural focus for MASA Group since it already invested in the first generation of tools developed for specific needs. Our customers were confident that our innovative approach would continue to support them by improving, or replacing, their old solutions.
2007-Present: Software publisher
This new business strategy required a new organization and new commercial processes:
- Reinforcement of product development teams to provide products for international markets. Reinforcement of the marketing team.
- Opening of a subsidiary in Norfolk (Virginia), driving development in North America and abroad. Opening of a subsidiary in Singapore, driving development in Asia.
- Investing in presentations and exhibits at international conferences and trade shows.
- Negociation of various agreements (marketing, MOU) with the main actors in the Defense industry.
Since 2007, MASA Group has transformed its service-oriented business, dealing mostly with large projects in the Defense sector, into a more diversified activity involving projects in Civil and Industry Security, and beyond. Our story goes on and on.