Channel awaits Fujitsu fallout

In its latest venture, the Japanese giant hopes to make the best ofits strengths in manufacturing.

The creation of a new PC company under the aegis of Fujitsu Personal Systems Business Group is set to cause changes at the channel level as the company vowed it would leverage its manufacturing strength.

David Mills, MD of ICL Volume Products, said: 'This is Fujitsu getting very very serious about the global PC market. Our aim is to be a top three supplier in Europe. We are not exiting the PC business. We are forming a new company.' Mills said the new company would leverage the strength of the parent. 'Fujitsu makes disk drives and DRam. We have this technology while some of our more prestigious competitors are nothing more than assemblers, like Compaq.' Tadayasu Sujita, a member of the board at Fujitsu Japan, said the company got most of its revenues from the domestic market but that picture was changing. 'This is another example of our successful expansion overseas,' he said.

Sujita added that Fujitsu had created its PC corporation in February, with an HQ in Silicon Valley. 'We and ICL have shared an understanding of what's necessary to succeed in the global market,' he said.

Mills said he knew of no plans to merge Fujitsu Europe with the new PC company, a view echoed by Fujitsu Europe's managing director Adam Harris. 'These companies are going to be autonomous,' he said. 'I can assure you we are a number one supplier to ICL for storage products.' He said the one question he had was whether Japan would supply product direct to the new subsidiary or use Fujitsu Europe. 'We don't know whether Japan will ultimately supply direct. Certainly they will use the power of Fujitsu.' Fujitsu Europe already supplied between 30 per cent to 35 per cent of hard drives to some ICL factories, said Harris, and that would increase. 'We are fully approved now in most of ICL's major areas.' He said Fujitsu Europe also shipped drives to ASI in Germany and to the UK, as well as Sweden.