Bull and NEC confirm new industrial partnership arrangements in the IT systems security marketplace

Agreement strengthens Bull's Identity and Access Management (IAM) offerings, delivered through its subsidiary Evidian, and opens new opportunities for NEC's security offering

Paris, March  8, 2006 – As announced on 26th September 2005, Bull will enter into a new industrial partnership with NEC. This first step of the new partnership between NEC and Bull has just been completed and involves NEC and Evidian, Bull's subsidiary specializing in IT systems security, and is twofold:

1. A significant financial investment from NEC in Evidian

NEC will make a €10 million investment in Bull Evidian to expand its product line in security area and strengthen its solution business in Europe.

The details of the investment are as follows:

• A €3 million direct equity investment in Evidian, giving NEC an 8% stake in Evidian. For its part, Bull will use this investment to add to its existing portfolio, on an OEM basis, new offers coming from NEC security portfolio
• A further investment of €7 million, in the form of 5-year maturity convertible bonds, designed to support the international development of Evidian. The conversion of the bonds will be triggered by Evidian's operating performance in 2007-2008. After the conversion, NEC's overall stake in Evidian will not exceed 20 %.

Both of these investments were made on 31 January 2006.

2. A promising commercial partnership agreement

The two groups will be working together to enhance their products and solutions and expand their offering portfolio within the framework of two OEM partnership agreements.

The aim of these agreements is for NEC to increase its penetration on the European security market, leveraging Evidian's market access, and for Evidian to increase its business in targeted Asian countries with its identity and access management offer, using NEC's strong position in these areas.

"This partnership gives us a real opportunity to further develop Evidian and capitalize on a relationship with a respected, world-renowned partner, and will open up new doors for the business on Asian markets", said Jean Pierre Barbéris, Managing Director Bull Services and Solutions. "At the same time, Evidian will be strengthening its offerings with NEC's additions in its IAM business."

"This partnership enables NEC to offer its security products via Evidian in Europe, allowing us to expand our solutions business there," said Mr. Koichi Ikumi, Senior Vice President at NEC. "We have every confidence that our investment will contribute to the enhancement of Evidian's products, spurring its additional growth, in turn benefiting both companies."

About Bull, Architect of an Open World

As one of the leading European IT companies, Evidian's parent company Bull delivers open, flexible and secure information systems. The group helps public and private sector customers transform their information systems, applying its know-how and expertise in three main areas:

• Capitalizing on its extensive mainframe experience, Bull designs and produces robust, innovative and open servers, based on industry-standard technologies
• Building on its alliances with leading ISVs and long-standing involvement with Open Source, Bull develops and implements flexible and interoperable application infrastructures which give business processes the freedom to evolve
• Bringing together recognized expertise in end-to-end IT security, Bull secures data and exchanges that are so critical in preserving customers' business integrity

Bull has a particularly strong presence in the public, healthcare, finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and defense sectors. Its distribution network and business partners cover more than 100 countries worldwide.

For more information see http://www.bull.com