Louisville, Colorado-based Storage Technology Corp is in a position to dictate terms these days, and it has secured what should be a profitable alliance with Groupe Bull SA, Paris to collaborate in a number of areas. The alliance, which covers a minimum five-year period, includes an agreement for the distribution and maintenance by Bull of StorageTek’s current and future storage products, and StorageTek looks for $500m of business from the pact over the five-year period. It will be the preferred supplier to Bull of its storage products for all Bull environments, and Bull will be the distributor of its products to Bull users.The agreement also provides the opportunity for Bull to supply standard computer systems to StorageTek for integration into its mass storage subsystems, and for the two to establish joint research and development projects. There had been talk of StorageTek taking over a French plant that Bull wants to vacate, but there is no mention of that in the collaboration announcement.
