What have been the relations of CII and Bull with the British manufacturer ICL?
Compagnie des Machines Bull was an OEM supplier to BTM, a predecessor of ICT, future core of ICL. CII had attempted to create links with ICL. They look together at the possibilities to harmonize their product lines, but ICL was not ready to yield on the design of the 2900 architecture. So, ICL and CII content themselves with establishing a common entity, Multinational Data, with Control Data to promote common standards . No great outputs came from that entity and CII teamed with Siemens, the product line of which was apparently easier to integrate. After the CII-HB creation, and before the take-over of Fujitsu on ICL, ICL approached Bull in attempting to promote its data base machine.
