Fujitsu increases vendor partner support

Fujitsu is seeking to increase support to its vendor partners with the announcement of a new APAC Product Integration Support Centre.

Based in Sydney, the centre will also provide multi-lingual application support to Fujitsu’s customers and subsidiaries in the region.

The centre, one of three globally, will add around 15 new pre- and post-sales support and product management positions when it opens on January 1st.

Fujitsu Australia picked up the facility on the back of its previous support provision, local manager strategic alliances, Terry Carter, said.

“The Australian operation has already proved it can provide a presales function to the region,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we want these extra capabilities locally?”

According to Carter vendor partners like Microsoft, Red Hat, Novell, Oracle and SAP had not demanded the facility or invested directly in it.

“They have made contribution more at the development level,” he said. “The reality is that to be a leading supplier of technology to the enterprise market these capabilities are a requirement.”

The new facility would enable Fujitsu to dedicate more attention to key verticals like financial, retail, manufacturing and distribution, Carter said.

“Around half our business in Australia also comes from the public sector,” he said. “Clearly we see them as one of the major users of high-end systems whether they are based on Microsoft, Solaris or open source platforms.”

Providing additional application support would also help the company grow its hardware presence in the market, Carter said.

“Currently our business is 70 services and 30 per cent hardware and the fact we’re looking to increase the Fujitsu hardware in the sales mix is no secret,” he said.

“We manufacture high-end enterprise platforms both Intel and Solaris based systems, but you need partners and environments to run on those platforms.”