Fujitsu pours cash into UK channel

Fujitsu Siemens is to invest heavily in the UK channel to try to tempt 200 SME resellers into the high-margin enterprise space. It will also source business for its partners and provide them with leads.

Fujitsu Siemens is to invest heavily in the UK channel to try to tempt 200 SME resellers into the high-margin enterprise space. It will also source business for its partners and provide them with leads.

The company said the initiative, a development of its Elite2 UK partner programme announced earlier this month, will see it recruit new resellers, launch a range of bespoke training programmes and provide online marketing that partners can customise with their individual company details.

In addition, Fujitsu will spend Eu3m on advertising its enterprise brand in the UK to coincide with the anticipated take-up of its products by the channel.

Within the enterprise space the company provides equipment across Intel and Unix platforms, and offers Solaris through its Sparc range of Primepower servers.

Ian Snaddon, UK director of channels, said: "From a product point of view we are trying to open up enterprise to the channel. We will invest heavily to allow them to do this. We will generate demand and immediately phone our resellers. It is important we make this scheme more than a plaque on the wall."

The scheme beefs up Fujitsu's UK channel presence after it streamlined the number of resellers it dealt with directly in September last year.

The company's financial reseller, Repton, is the first partner to step up into the enterprise space under the new scheme. Mark Lambert, sales manager at Repton, said a major benefit of the scheme was offering large customers an alternative to buying Solaris systems directly from Sun Microsystems.

"Moving resellers into the enterprise space with Fujitsu Siemens gives customers a choice, and we are looking forward to providing our high-end City-based customers with a credible alternative," he claimed.

Fujitsu-owned systems and services arm ICL will disappear into the Fujitsu brand in March 2002. The structure of ICL will remain intact and the operations of its reseller arm, ICL Multivendor Computing, will be unaffected.

ICL is the third largest software and IT services supplier in the UK. It made a £70m loss on turnover of £2.8bn in its last financial year.