BULL computers
chronological history |
Bull a privatized company 1994-...
Jean-Marie Descarpentries launched an austerity program to salvage the financial situation of the company and to create favorable conditions for a successful IPO. Bull orients itself as an EDP distribution company. Without abandoning the proprietary GCOS customers and its (somewhat limited) base of UNIX/AIX servers, it enters the distribution of NT servers (with NEC), of workstations and of software (Baan, SAP, ...).
Jean-Marie Descarpentries |
Guy de Panafieu |
Pierre Bonelli |
After JM Descarpentries' departure, Guy de Panafieu did not succeed to find new investment partner(s) to acquire the rest of government (and France Telecom) shares. In spite of a surge of the service business in 1999, may be due to Y2K syndrome, the financial situation continued to deteriorate. Before the end of 2000, Bull initiated a strategy of dismantlement of the assets of the company, beginning with the smart card business (CP/8), continuing with the service arm (Integris)...
At the end of 2001, Guy de Panafieu is replaced by Pierre Bonnelli as CEO
| 18 Nov 1994 | The French Government initiates the privatization of Bull |
| Feb 1995 | Formal agreement with NEC for a common development in GCOS8 providing a high end system code-named Jupiter, using the Auriga2 CMOS technology. |
| 15 Sep 1995 | The government part of Bull's stock is reduced from 79.6% to 36.4%. Motorola, France Telecom, NEC and Dai Nippon Printing are the major shareholders of Compagnie des Machines Bull. |
| Dec 1995 | IPC France becomes a subsidiary of ZDS |
| 15 Mar 1996 | Introduction of Sagister, a cluster of Escala Unix systems, for the mainframe market This attempt to cannibalize the GCOS market was not successful. |
| 13 Apr 1996 | Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) is merged with Packard Bell and the North American personal computers activities of NEC, creating the company Packard-Bell- NEC Inc. |
| 20 Dec 1996 | Privatization of Bull, with NEC 18.7%, Motorola 18.7%, France Telecom 18.5%, Dai Nippon Printing 5%, while government retains 30.5%. |
| 31 Dec 1996 | Results of 1996: sales 24.029BF, earnings 376MF, personnel: 21683p |
| 25 Jan 1997 | Inauguration of the Angers Packard Bell plant |
| 11 Mar 1997 | Thierry Breton is named PDG of Thomson Multimedia and leaves Bull, replaced by Alain Couder. |
| 1997 | The name Compagnie des Machines Bull is changed into Bull. |
| 11 Sep 1997 | Guy de Panafieu (ex-Lyonnaise des Eaux) is named PDG of Bull, replacing Jean-Marie Descarpentries. |
| Oct 1997 | Agreement for the distribution of NEC Express 5800 (Intel processors) running Windows/NT |
| Feb 1998 | Results of 1997 : sales: 24.6BF (+5%), earnings: 603MF (+60%) |
| Sep 1998 | Alain Couder is named CEO of Packard-Bell NEC in USA. NEC and Bull will decide in Spring 1999 to write off the activities of NEC-Packard-Bell and Alain Couder will leave the group. |
| Jan 1999 | Don Zeresky (ex-DEC and DG) named chief operating officer |
| Jan 1999 | Didier Breton promoted as Servers division president |
| Feb 1999 | Results of 1998: sales 24.9BF (+1.4%)., earnings 17MF, personnel 20676p |
| Mar 1999 | Faced to important write-offs in Packard-Bell NEC America, NEC decides to spin-off the more successful Packard-Bell European subsidiary where Bull increase its shareholding to 20% |
| Mar 1999 | Cyrille du Peloux (ex-Lyonnaise des eaux and satellite television operator TPS) named deputy directeur général of Bull. |
| Jun 1999 | Cyrille du Peloux and Don Zeresky are both named "directeur général". Zereski manages servers, software, R&D, while Du Peloux manages strategy, services, smart cards, finances, marketing and sales (outside America) |
| Oct 1999 | Creation of a subsidiary dedicated to the distribution of Windows/NT servers |
| Jan 2001 | Guy de Panafieu announced
a restructuring of the company divided between an Infrastructure division and a Services
division (Integris), acting as subsidiaries. He launched a plan to reduce staff by 10% in 2001. He announced a plan to divest smart card and some other activities. Cyrille du Peloux is heading Integris and Hervé Mouren is heading BIS Bull Infrastructure and Servers. |
| Feb 2001 | Bull CP8 is sold to Schlumberger for 350M euros. |
| May 2001 | Integris International will be
integrated within STERIA group in exchange of a STERIA shares. Bull announce a future spin off for Integris France. Maintenance will be transferred back to BIS from Integris. |
| Jun 2001 | Bull Infrastructure and Servers announced a new line of Intel Itanium servers, and the support of GCOS 7 by some Intel based platforms. |
| Aug 2001 | Bull attempted to finalize the
cession of Integris Europe to STERIA. No agreement for a spin-off of Integris France was achieved |
| 19 Nov 2001 | Resignation of CEO Guy de Panafieu |
| 2 Dec 2001 | Pierre Bonelli named CEO of Bull |
| Dec 2001 | Cyrille du Peloux leaves
Integris after attempting a MBO. End of STERIA negotiation: Integris France, Greece and Italy remain part of Bull |
| 14 Mar 2002 | Pierre Bonelli announces losses of 253 millions euros for year 2001. Revenue decreases 8.7% at 2.54 billions euros. Bull's staff of 10000 persons is planned to be cut by 1500 in 2002. |