The French government has now set its massive new handouts to Compagnie des Machines Bull SA and Thomson SA. It will subscribe the equivalent of $354m this year and $354m next for new capital at Bull, and will also give the company a $475m subvention towards its $2,480m four-year development programme to reorient its product lines towards open systems with its Distributed Computing Model. Thomson will get $320m of new capital this year to bail out its consumer electronics division. France Telecom has agreed to take up its share of the capital expansions, and will step up collaboration with both companies, although negotiations between Bull and the state phone company over putting Bull’s internal network into a joint venture have proved troublesome. The subsidies are technically illegal under European Community regulations, and have already come under fire from competitors.
