The Fujitsu group of companies, traditionally strong in the Japanese market has had aspirations for growing its international business for some time. In 1999 Fujitsu created a 50/50 joint venture between Fujitsu Computers (Europe) Ltd. and Siemens Computer Systems Division to form the Fujitsu Siemens Computers operation. This gave Fujitsu a bigger footprint in the European Middle East Africa market. The group also had a presence in the big US market but with three separate companies.
This fractured approach was probably a limiting factor for the company gaining the recognition it sought on the international stage. This latest set of announcements is designed to create a greater focus around the Fujitsu brand, which the company hopes will give it the critical mass and recognition it is aiming for on the world stage.
I recently attended the Fujitsu Integration Analyst Webinar where the company shared its latest announcements and the background on these changes.
The Fujitsu Group has taken over the remaining 50% share of Fujitsu Siemens from Siemens and named the new company Fujitsu Technology Solutions (FTS). It will have responsibility for sales into Europe, Middle East and Africa and India.
FTS will also take the global lead for R&D, based in Germany (Paderborn and Augsburg) for some of Fujitsu’s Technology Solutions offerings, specifically x86 Server PRIMERGY and ETERNUS – Fujitsu’s own Storage solution.
Fujitsu in the US, which was previously three separate organizations, Fujitsu Consulting, Fujitsu Computer Systems and Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, has been merged into a single entity called Fujitsu America.
These new organizations and others around the world (China, Australia and New Zealand and ASEAN etc.) will all combine as a single Global Business Group to market a single ‘Fujitsu’ technology brand worldwide.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the announcement for me was that Fujitsu intends to focus on the x86 Intel Architecture market in the medium to long term.
Fujitsu sees its mainframe business, which is significant in Japan, declining. The UNIX business is flat and the growth space is Intel-based Windows and Linux servers. Fujitsu’s market share of Intel x86 systems in 2008 was 4%. The company has bold plans to increase its market share to 7% (500K units) in 2010 and 10% in 2012.
This potentially leaves a gap in the market where one could argue that Intel x86 has not yet matched the high-end UNIX offerings in the mission critical space. However, it seems that Fujitsu is banking on an extended transition phase, where it can manage the changeover, and presumably sees the this architecture filling that space over the coming years as multi-core processors let Intel x86 reach into this space.
The decision to focus on Intel x86 is interesting given that Fujitsu has an existing sizeable stake in the SPARC architecture, including a technology partnership with Sun Microsystems, which includes joint development and delivery of Solaris and SPARC-based systems. The message was that the company is not abandoning this part of the market, nor the mainframe business. The point was made that the SPARC business is a sizeable part of the existing Japanese server business for Fujitsu. But in the medium to long term, much of the focus, and most of the R&D spending, will be weighted towards Intel x86, because that is where Fujitsu sees the growth.
Japanese companies are renowned for making decisions for the long term and this looks like being one of them. Other companies with multiple processor architectures have chosen to market both alongside each other and “let the market decide”. So top marks to Fujitsu, for taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand and making a call itself.
Now is probably the best possible time to make such an announcement. Rivals would have used this announcement to put fear, uncertainty and doubt, into the Fujitsu SPARC installed base and Sun could have been given a free kick, as some companies committed to Solaris and SPARC contemplated a move to Sun architectures as a result. But with rumors of a Sun and IBM merger circulating, and the uncertainty of what might happen to SPARC if that merger was to go ahead, reduces this as a risk.
Fujitsu’s storage portfolio has traditionally been fragmented across the different markets in which it plays. So in line with the new consolidation mantra the company is looking to merge and standardize its storage offerings on a worldwide basis. Fujitsu is currently defining a new set of globally unified storage products which will be aligned under the ETERNUS brand, with R&D centralized in Germany. The company has also announced that it is strengthening its cooperation with its storage partners, NetApp and EMC, although no details were given.
Fujitsu’s main aim is to grow its international business and so become the next IT powerhouse, recognized as a truly global organization. With the current economic climate and the uncertainty and instability generated in the markets, where the normal rules may no longer apply, ironically this may just be the right time to make this push, and to finally realize the goal of being seen in the same company as its rivals, HP, IBM and Dell.
Fujitsu’s products are included in Ideas International’s Competitive Profiles research offering, and the profiles have now been updated to reflect Fujitsu new single brand go to market strategy.
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