Notes

• [1]
  P. Mounier-Kuhn, “Bull. A Worldwide Company Born in Europe”, Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 11, n° 4, 1989, p. 279-298; “Product Policies in Two French Computer Firms: SEA and Bull (1948-1964)”, in L. Bud-Frierman (ed.), Information Acumen. The Understanding and Use of Knowledge in Modern Business, London, Routledge, 1994, p. 113-135; “French Computer Manufacturers and the Component Industry, 1952-1972”, History and Technology, vol. 11, 1994, p. 195-216; “L’informatique française : une résistible ‘américanisation’ (1946-1970)”, in D. Barjot and C. Réveillard (eds.), L’américanisation de l’Europe occidentale au XX^e siècle, Paris, Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2002, p. 207-226.
• [2]
  On GE, see particularly J. A. N. Lee, “The Rise and Fall of the General Electric Corporation Computer Department”, Annals of the History of Computing, vol 17, n° 4, 1995, p. 24-45. J. A. N. Lee and G. E. Snively, “The Rise and Sale of the GE Computer Department: A Further Look”, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 22, n°2, April-June 2000, p. 53-60. H. Oldfield, King of the Seven Dwarfs. General Electric’s Ambiguous Challenge to the Computer Industry, Los Alamitos, IEEE Press, 1997. G. E. Snively, “General Electric Enters the Computer Business”, Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 10, n° 1, 1988, p. 74-78. For a more contextualized view, see J. W. Cortada, The Computer in the United States. From Laboratory to Market, 1930 to 1960, Armonk, M. E. Sharpe, 1993.
• [3]
  G. E. Snively, “Separating fact from fiction. A critique of Homer R. Oldfield’s book, King of the Seven Dwarfs”. http://www.smecc.org/snively’_corrections_to_king_of_the_seven_dwarfs.htm. Snively was the expert commissioned to analyze IBM as a possible acquisition by GE in mid-1956.
• [4]
  See the paper by S.-E. Grieg-Smith, “Communication in Norway’s army during the German attack, 1940”, at the University of Bergen conference on “Knowledge exchange in organizations” on September 14^th, 2012.
• [5]
  P. F. Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander, New York, Harper & Row, 1978.
• [6]
  GE, Professional Management in General Electric, GE (NY), 1953-1959. Book 1. General Electric’s growth. 2. General Electric’s organization. 3. The work of a professional manager. 4. The work of a functional individual contributor.
• [7]
  The term “bootlegged” is borrowed from G. E. Snively, “Separating fact from fiction…”, art. cit.
• [8]
  For example J. A. N. Lee, “The Rise and Fall of the General Electric Corporation Computer Department”, and H. Oldfield, King of the Seven Dwarfs, op. cit.
• [9]
  G. Vieillard, L’Affaire Bull, Paris, Spag-Chaix, 1968, p. 32-33.
• [10]
  G. Vieillard, L’Affaire Bull, op. cit., p. 34.
• [11]
  Archives nationales du monde du travail, Roubaix, 2012 007, Archives Historiques Bull, File Visites préliminaires GE-Bull, 92Hist-DGE02/7, John D. Lockton letters to Joseph Callies, 18 and 30 December 1963, And G. Vieillard, L’Affaire Bull, op. cit., p. 36-39.
• [12]
  J.-P. Brulé, L’Informatique malade de l’État, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1993. This book provides a more distantiated analysis than G. Vieillard’s L’Affaire Bull.
• [13]
  P. Mounier-Kuhn, “Un exportateur dynamique mais vulnérable : la Compagnie des Machines Bull (1948-1964)”, Histoire, Économie et Société, n° 4, 1995, p. 643-665. O. Darrieulat, Les débuts de la Compagnie des Machines Bull des origines à 1935, thèse de doctorat d’histoire, Université Paris X-Nanterre, 1997.
• [14]
  Cf. D. Varaschin, « Familles Aussedat et Callies », in J.-C. Daumas et alii (eds.), Dictionnaire historique des patrons français, Paris, Flammarion, 2010, p. 43-45.
• [15]
  Fortune, April 1959, p. 83. ?On programming methodology, see J.-D. Warnier, Entraînement à la construction des programmes d’informatique.?Principes et exercices pratiques, Paris, Éditions d’Organisation, 1970.
• [16]
  C. W. Bachman, « The Origin of the Integrated Data Store (IDS): The First Direct-Access DBMS », IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 31, n° 4, October-December 2009, p. 42-54.
• [17]
  A. D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1977.
• [18]
  Correspondence with Gilbert Nathan, former sales engineer at Bull, 9 July 2001.
• [19]
  Correspondence with Jean Bellec, former R&D engineer at Bull, 6 July 2001.
• [20]
  M. Bellisario, Donna & Top Manager. La mia storia, Milan, Rizzoli, 1987, p. 14.
• [21]
  P. Mounier-Kuhn, « Le Plan Calcul, Bull et l’industrie des composants : les contradictions d’une stratégie », Revue historique, vol. CCXC, janvier-mars 1995, p. 123-153.
• [22]
  Created in 1958, SEMA applied Professor Claude Berge’s theory of graphs to develop a method of potentials comparable with the PERT. Cf. J. Lesourne, Un homme de notre siècle. De Polytechnique à la prospective et au journal Le Monde, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2000.
• [23]
  It can be precisely dated with a first note by an executive just arrived from Bull’s quality control sector, M. Demaret, « Projet de procédures de revues indépendantes de produit », 20 October 1972, officialized and implemented from January 1973.
• [24]
  Author’s interviews with J.-F. Dubourg, G. Simonet and other former CII executives, 2008.