Research at Bull
(under construction)
Overview
Bull research did not had a single organization. With Compagnie des Machines Bull, research labs were intermixed with hardware engineering. In 1961, Bull created research programs within engineering not directly towards product development. Many of those programs were terminated after the failure to get government research contracts during the 1964 crisis and other were killed by Bull General-Electric.
Within CII, several laboratories were established in software and in hardware. They were brought within CII-HB that set up a Research direction. Almost all staff was coming from the CII ranks. A program of technology exchange between research and development was initiated with mix results. With the nationalization, the Research organization received some additional personal from universities and from INRIA. There was then an attempt to spin off from the Research unit some ventures, e.g. Artificial Intelligence CEDIAG.
At the end of the 1980s, the Research direction was dissolved, and research engineers were transfered to engineering, keeping only a kernel of scientists dealing with outside people.
Subjects of research in Compagnie des Machines Bull (1961-1965)
CMC-7
Cryogenics
Process control devices
Mathematics
Languages
Subjects of research in CII-HB and Bull (1975-1985)
Research was generally subsidized by the French government and/or Europe Community on
the theoretical 50% basis. The European programs ought to be international cooperative
projects associating industrial companies, research organizations or Universities. The EDP
industrial companies were mainly Bull, Siemens and ICL, but they also include European
subsidiaries of American companies (e.g. IBM, Digital or HP)
MOS
Perpendicular recording
Artificial Intelligence
Supercomputers
RAID
High speed transmission
Management of Research
Maison
François Sallé
Georges Grundberg
Gérard Roucairol
In 1994, the specific Research organization was dissolved and the continuation
of on-going projects trasferred to Engineering.
Conclusion
Revision : 27 juin 2001