IBM Corp and the Rios RISC have won the beauty contest to decide which company should have the doubtful privilege of bailing out Groupe Bull SA. Prime Minister Mme Edith Cresson suggested that IBM would put up $100m for a 5.7% shareholding in the state-controlled company that has been a political football for the last 20 years although that is still under negotiation; it would value the entire group at $1,755m and balance the 4.7% stake held by NEC Corp. IBM will manufacture and assemble RISC products for Bull at its Corbeil-Essonne plant, and supply disks OEM to Bull, which in turn will contribute its expertise in multiprocessors – IBM does not yet have any multiprocessor RS/6000 models. Bull will manufacture circuit boards and subassemblies for IBM at Angers, and there will also be product exchanges between IBM and Bull’s Zenith Data Systems, with Zenith building some laptop and notebook computers for IBM and IBM supplying Zenith with disks. Bull will also join the Computer Design Centre in Austin, Texas, where engineers from IBM, Motorola Inc and Apple Computer Inc are designing the PowerPC version of the Rios RISC. The other contender for Bull’s hand, Hewlett-Packard Co, may get a consolation prize in the shape of an invitation to invest in another state-controlled loss-maker, SGS Thomson Microelectronics NV as part of a semiconductor collaboration pact.
