TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Motorola, NEC to Invest in France’s Bull: The American electronics powerhouse and the Japanese computer and telecom vendor will each take a 17% stake in money-losing French computer maker Cie des Machines Bull, sources close to the talks in Paris said. IPC of Singapore will take less than 10% later in the year, while IBM Corp. is prepared to raise its stake in Bull to 5% from 1.8%, they added. Agreements with the main partners, to be signed in three weeks, mean that France is near its goal of reducing its interest to less than half before the end of the year-- a condition set by the European Commission for approving a $2.22-billion state capital infusion.