In contrast to its refusal months ago to participate further in the privatisation of Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, IBM Corp is discussing the subject with Bull president Jean-Marie Descarpentries, Hans-Olaf Henkel, managing director of IBM Europe, told La Tribune-Defosses. Henkel said he found the IBM-Bull alliance extremely interesting and that Descarpentries, whom he has met on several occasions, impressed me favourably and equally for his restructuring plan, even if Bull is for us a competitor. On IBM’s previous refusal to participate in the privatisation, Henkel did not specify why, except to say that both companies must first complete their reorganisations. On that topic, Henkel admitted that, although the situation at IBM’s Montpellier site for large-scale systems is extremely worrying right now… we have several measures and projects under way to ensure that it continues to function… [and] I have the feeling that it will remain integrated in the group for a long time. Nonetheless, he said, IBM will have to eliminate 10,000 jobs in Europe this year and a lesser number next year. Overall, he said, IBM Europe forecasts a black bottom line this year. I can tell you that the business is right now in line with this prediction, he said. Henkel also admitted to considering bad news Siemens’ decision to invest millions of dollars in its Dresden semiconductor facility. IBM Europe decided not to participate, he said, because it would have meant closing its factory in Essonnes. As for the next generation of 64M-bit chips, we will produce them, and not necessarily elsewhere with partners. We have not yet decided where they will be produced or if we will have one or two such sites in the world.Henkel also indicated that IBM wouldn’t be opposed to taking a stake in a privatised Deutsche Telekom or France Telecom, saying any telephone operator would be a very interesting potential partner, from both the technological and financial point of view and he called for faster liberalisation.
