Conference tnpubs::xwell

34.0. "Latest on BULL from VNS news" by VISHNU::KRISHNASWAMY (The Indy500 is won in the pits) Tue Dec 19 1989 08:22

 Bull HN Information Systems - Guess at midyear net income. R&D budget.
	{Forbes, 11-Dec-89, p. 183}
   The company is now the eleventh-largest U.S. computer maker. But the honor
 is rather empty, given that the operation earned just $500,000 last year, on
 revenue of $2.2 billion. Groupe Bull doesn't break out midyear numbers for
 its operating units, but word is that Bull HN lost about $25 million in the
 first half of this year. Under Bull HN chief executive Roland Pampel, Bull's
 plants and products are being upgraded. "We had never been directed to be on
 the leading edge," says Robert W. Faghan, manager at the company's Brighton,
 Mass. circuit board plant. That is changing. Annual capital outlays at
 Brighton more than doubled this year, to $8 million. In recent years the
 time needed to get a new product out has been reduced by 80%. Bull HN's
 research and development spending, about $280 million this year, will increase
 9% next year. And this year the company has spent more than $15 million on
 advertising using the pounding "Know Bull" theme. That's up from $3 million
 two years ago.