Over the past couple of years, ICL has followed a commendable new policy of adding a European dimension to its philosophy, playing the leading role in establishment of the X/Open Unix applications standards body, siting a factory automation centre in West Germany, and setting up a Unix software development operation in Dublin, Eire. Up to now, France, by far ICL’s largest continental European market, has not benefitted from the company’s new European policy, but all that is to change with the announcement on Friday that ICL France is to host a new Network Applications Business Centre that will develop viewdata and messaging applications, and communications with alien network architectures, and market them on a European scale. ICL France also reported operating profits for 1986 up 94% at FF64m on turnover up a modest 4.6% at FF708m, UKP72m.
