As I pointed out in a recent press interview[1] , overall I am confident about the future prospects for our industry, and for Bull, which succeeded in recording a 17.8% increase in orders over the first six months of 2010.
Never has there been a greater need for rationalization and optimization of infrastructures. And never has data processing been so relevant when it comes to developing better performing, less polluting products, or to serving our customers and citizens more effectively. This powerful trend is being experienced in all the industrialized nations. Once you add the growth of emerging economies into the mix, it’s clear that our business is right at the heart of all these major initiatives. Whether this involves virtualization – widely explored in this latest issue of Bull Direct – or secure Extreme Computing, with two significant case studies provided by Dassault Aviation and the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, or even the large-scale Business Intelligence project being implemented by the city authorities in Marseille, France’s second largest city… Bull is involved on all fronts. It’s key assets? Very high levels of technical expertise, extremely committed teams and the ability to build strong partnerships with the leaders in each area.
You are aware of just how much importance I attach to our technological supremacy; our most powerful weapon. Faced with US domination and the massive commitments being made in China, it is time that Europe sat up and took real notice of the potential strategic benefits of nurturing expertise in information technologies, especially in Extreme Computing, on their own territory. As the authors of a recent report from the government sponsored Center for strategic analysis in France highlight in a recent report, digital dependency restricts the exercise of full national sovereignty and business competitiveness. France can give the signal for this to start, with the President’s recovery plan, the Grand Emprunt. We have proposed a highly innovative project for large-scale ‘supercomputing-on-demand’, operating in Cloud Computing mode and accessible to the entire French and European industrial sector. I sincerely hope that it will be accepted.
Thank you again for the confidence you continue to demonstrate in Bull.
Philippe Vannier
Chairman and CEO, Bull
[1] Le Journal du Dimanche – August 29th
