Growth, stimulated by the success of our new offerings

EDITORIAL

I am proud to announce that in the first quarter of 2009 the dynamism that Bull achieved in 2008 was undiminished. Indeed we started the 2009 financial year with a 23.9% increase in orders taken and 6.5% growth in revenues.

This achievement, stimulated by the success of our new growth offerings, confirms that the business transformation strategy we have followed for the past four years is the right one. In particular, it is based on:

• A resolute commitment to growth technologies and segments (computer simulation and secure storage), where sales saw a 28.7% increase in Q1 and orders were up 33% thanks to the remarkable success of our High-Performance Computing (HPC) solutions, open servers and, to a lesser extent, our secure storage solutions. Businesses are continuing to invest in these areas, even in these times of economic crisis, because HPC in particular is an essential driver for accelerating innovation, developing new products and bringing them to market rapidly. I am convinced that they are a real solution to help get through the crisis, and we are going to make them more accessible to SMEs.
  
  
• The growth in our high added-value services activities, which now accounts for 44% of our business compared with 25% in 2005. Once again, we have confirmed our ability to grow at a faster rate than the market, especially in France, and we have recorded a 24.7% increase in orders and 4.2% growth in revenues.
  
  
• Our sector positioning, a real asset when it comes to resisting the current economic situation. If investment in industry and banking has clearly slowed down, this is not the case in the public sector and telecommunications, which alone account for over 50% of our revenues.

Finally, a decisive sign of our renewal, we have renewed almost half of our skill-base worldwide, and are planning to recruit another 400 people this year.

Of course, with the current global crisis no-one can predict the future. But I believe that Bull now has a solid business model. We have developed our weapons of resistance (delivering services to growth sectors) and invested in promising offerings for the future. And in the very near future Bull will take yet another step ahead of the market, with the launch of a new innovation.

Thank you again for putting your trust in Bull.

Didier Lamouche
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer