UFB Locabail has released the results of its annual survey into information technology in France, and has found that 76% of small to medium enterprises – organisations with between six and 200 staff – now rely on some form of computer technology, against 71% for the year before. Just over 24,000 of these firms bought in their first equipment in 1989, bringing the number of firms with at least one central processing unit to more than 198,000; UFB reckons that by the end of this year, the figure should have risen to around 218,000, or 84%. 67% possessed a microcomputer, up from 61% for the year before, and the average number of microcomputers installed per firm rose to 3.2 from 2.8. The popularity of minicomputers has continued to rise, and they are now installed in 38% of small to medium firms; multivendor environments now exist in 29% of these companies, with some form of networking in place in 39% of them. The market is still dominated by IBM, with 31% saying they had at least one IBM computer installed, against 30% in 1988; the corresponding figure for Apple remained the same at 12%; the penetration of Olivetti equipment fell to 10% from 12%, while Victor and Amstrad both went down to 7% from 8% in 1988; Bull remainedat 7%m, while Compaq rose to 8% from 6%. For the future, 67,000 of the companies surveyed said they intended to buy at least one personal computer in 1990, with 22,000 saying they would like a minicomputer – at that level, it would mark a slowdown in growth from the years before. 60% of these sales will represent an increase in computing power, 20% will be the replacement and upgrading of old equipment, and a further 20% of sales will be to companies new to information technology. UFB also found that facsimile transmission had displaced telex, with 55% of these firms having a facsimile machine – a figure predicted to grow to 66% in 1990.
