This article is more than 1 year old

Miniature Bull for sale

Integris = Not Pig

What exactly is the point of Groupe Bull, the French government-backed computer business? If the company were to disappear tomorrow, who, apart from the employees would notice. On the computer systems side it is little more than a rebadger for IBM RS/6000 businesses.

And on the services side, it has such little confidence in its ability to make a go of it on its own - in France - that it has decided to sell up to Steria, a rival French computer consultancy.

Bull will end up with E300m and 15 per cent of Steria, a French computer services firm.

Steria is also considering buying Bull's non-French services.

Integris (as Bull's services biz is called) accounted for half of Bull's E3.24bn turnover last year.
The group lost E243m in 2000.

Without Integris, the company looks somewhat lacking in the critical mass department. Considering its much diminished size, perhaps the company should rename itself "Bullock". ®

Bootnote

Thanks to our reader Björn who writes: "Integris", or rather "Inte gris", means "not pig" in Swedish. They've had quite the hassle convincing people their new name is not a joke...

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