Wavecom, a French wireless firm, moved its Americas headquarters to this building in the Research Triangle Park.

   When Wavecom, a Paris- based developer of prepackaged wireless communication devices, acquired Sony Ericsson's machine- to- machine wireless data division in the Research Triangle Park last April, the site search for a new Americas headquarters didn't stray too far.
   "We had 90 people already here and that made the decision pretty easy," says Stefan Lindvall, Wavecom's group vice president and head of its Americas region. Lindvall, who was vice president of sales and marketing, Americas, for the acquired Sony Ericsson division, was one of the 90. Although Wavecom had an office in San Diego, the need to communicate with the company's Paris headquarters dictated an East Coast location.
   "For us, it's important to have as many hours as possible during the day to communicate with Paris, and an East Coast location was pretty obvious," Lindvall says. "There's just a six- hour time difference compared with a nine-hour difference in California, which makes it difficult to communicate."
   Lindvall says the RTP operation will eventually expand to 150 people and the region's universities make it easy to find the right people to fill those jobs. The site houses sales and marketing for the Americas as well as one of Wavecom's three global R&D centers. Wavecom outsources its manufacturing to companies in China and Mexico. Wavecom's Americas business is growing fast and represents nearly 25 percent of the company's business, he says.