French enterprises expect to increase their spending on information systems and services by 2.5% in 1993, to $47,900m, says a recent survey by Paris-based TMO Consultants. TMO says the survey is based on information from a study called Observatoire Permanent des Etablissements, which is conducted every two years among 7,000 enterprises, and from annual surveys of its large and medium-sized accounts and of computer distributors. A bigger increase of 3.5% is expected in 1994, the study says. Both increases, however, are below the 6% increase for 1992, over 1991. Not surprisingly, spending increased on micros and workstations while it declined for mainframes. The number of mainframe systems, defined as machines costing over $1m, was down 1%, with 3,990 units installed compared with 4,015 in 1991. The installed base of medium-sized systems, which are priced between $18,000 and $1m and include most workstations, grew 9%, to 218,000 units. Micros, which TMO classifies as being priced under $18,000, grew in number by 13% to 3,063,000 units. The number of informatics technicians remained stable, but with a slight drop, to 145,000 in 1992 from 146,000 in 1991. Founded in 1974, TMO achieved 1992 revenues equivalent to $13.1m, and employs 70 people.
