Fujitsu dismisses desktop "doom and gloom"

Fujitsu Australia is getting into the PC market despite pervading fears that the desktop is doomed.

The IT vendor is betting on healthy demand for desktops with the debut of new offerings targeted directly at resellers in the SMB, education and government space.

Earlier this year global PC leader HP considered selling off its PC business, number two Lenovo sought to rebrand itself as total solutions provider, while IT analyst groups including Gartner and IDC slashed their PC market outlooks.

Fujitsu PC’s Australian country manager Bert Noah told CRN he was unconcerned about the “doom and gloom” message being spread about PCs. 

“We’ve been hearing the same thing but the fact remains it’s not going to go away, it’s not the death of the PC,” Noah said. “Maybe in twenty years time it could be the case and it will morph into something else, but as long as there are employees in organisations that need to do a task, and not take their work home with them, there will be a PC.”

Fujitsu is aiming to take on market leaders HP, Lenovo and Dell by offering partners a “100 per cent” channel strategy and a guarantee it won’t go direct. Noah said HP’s announcement regarding the possible sale of its PC business spurred Fujitsu on.

“If you speak to the partners, their biggest fear is when times are tough, when things are hard, vendors go direct,” Noah said. “The reality is we haven’t done that in our history and we’ve got the track record.”

“We made this decision back in April, and [ HP ] was one of the great motivators. When that noise happened it gave us more resolve. We believe there is a significant opportunity.”

Today Fujitsu unveiled the ten new PCs making up its commercial desktop push, with the Esprimo E series, P series, Q series, C series and D series adding to its commercial portfolio which sports notebooks and tablets. The desktops are built on the Huron River platform and are priced from $1288 with around 27 configurations.

Noah told CRN Fujitsu had been unable in the past to service potential partners and clients due to its inability to provide a complete solution. He expects additional government department clients, beyond the current state-level health and education agencies, will sign up for an agency-wide solution thanks to the new desktop range. 

Though declining to name any, he said 20 per cent of Fujitsu’s current channel had signed up as desktop partners, while discussions with new partners are underway.

“Right now we can be the brand that does everything,” he said. “We will for sure develop new partnerships because those prospective partners we’ve spoken to in the past a were little bit shy since we didn’t have PCs. Now there is no excuse.”

No demand for BYO

Despite Fujitsu’s history with mobility products in the commercial space, it is yet to steer clients towards the BYO device business model. Noah told CRN demand is yet to arise despite a growing interest.

“There’s a lot of noise, but I haven’t seen anyone yet that is ready completely to do that,” he said. “It could be happening, I just haven’t seen it.”

“It’s not about just BYO, it’s about what you need to lead up to it, and there is significant work to be done. We are bringing it to their attention to say, ‘you need to take these steps first to enable that and these are the benefits you could have if you’re willing to invest in those first steps’.”

The project is being distributed through Bluechip Infotech and Multimedia Technology and will be officially launched on January 2, 2012.