Compagnie des Machines SA is delivering the push it promised to give its systems management software business earlier this year (CI No 3,338, 3,373) and on Friday formally launched its new software division under the name BullSoft Inc. With its eye on the huge revenues generated by Computer Associates International Inc’s Unicenter, Bull hopes it will be able to establish itself a serious player in the enterprise space and create an image as an independent software company. Unlike most of its interests, BullSoft has headed to the US and is basing the new unit in Billerica, Massachusetts. Bull has decided that becoming a software player in the US was long overdue and has now set itself a goal of generating 50% of its software business from the US market. While the company employs 1,300 members of staff in the US and generates an annual $100m worth of sales, only a small proportion of them will work for BullSoft. The division’s international president and CEO, Henry Ancona declined to give exact figures. But as there are only 18 such staff in the UK, which is a far more established arm of the new unit, we can only assume that it is a very low figure. Bull is betting its software business on its OpenMaster enterprise management product, version 5.0 of which is soon to be released. Theoretically, it throws Bull into the line of fire of systems management kings Tivoli Systems Inc and Computer Associates. But Ancona prefers not to comment on the pair and argues that Bull is number three in the market at the moment. He says it focuses its attentions on different areas, and unlike Tivoli and CA is only focusing on large organizations as customers. While enterprise management is key, the company claims its telecommunications management capabilities and security functions will be differentiators. Bull claims it has the most secure systems management product on the market, thanks to its AccessMaster element, which provides single sign-on capabilities and 190-bit key encryption. Ancona believes that when the year 2000 hullabaloo has passed, security breaches of organization’s IT infrastructures will poise a much more serious problem, and says it can help it customers to avoid falling in to that trap. BullSoft is looking to partners to help it get the software ball rolling, and believes this will provide it with an easier launch point, and quicker growth. If nothing else BullSoft is confident and doesn’t seem to think it will be a problem getting the US market, and the software industry as a whole to take it seriously. Faced with the concept of failure, Ancona said: It will work. I’ve been in the business for 30 years and its never gone wrong.
