Fujitsu Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Fujitsu is a publicly owned company, headquartered in Tokyo, employing approximately 160,000 employees. Calling itself “a leading provider of IT-based business solutions for the global marketplace,” it is the world’s third-largest provider of information technology (IT) services and products, and serves customers in 70 countries. Its main competitors are IBM, Toshiba, and NEC. Annual revenues as of March 2008 were $53 billion with profits of $868 million.

Fujitsu is currently organized into three main components: Technology Solutions, Ubiquitous Product Solutions, and Device Solutions. Technology Solutions includes system platforms (system and network products) and services including solutions and systems integration and infrastructure services). Ubiquitous Product Solutions develops and manufactures personal computers, mobile phones, hard disks, and other equipment. Device Solutions provides large-scale integrated (LSI) devices and various electronic components.

Established in 1935, Fujitsu was first known as Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing Corporation. It began operations as a 700-employee manufacturer of telephone equipment. After World War II, Fujitsu returned to this industry. By 1950 it was making 5,000 telephones a month. The following year, the company began manufacturing calculating machines, followed by designing and manufacturing electronic communications equipment. In 1954 Fujitsu developed Japan’s first computer, the FACOM-100. Additionally, the company expanded its products to include equipment for radio communications.

The number of computers and the range of the Fujitsu product line grew. Fujitsu began exporting computers in the mid-1960s. International business grew to the extent that in 1967 Fujitsu Limited, as it was now known, opened its first international branch in New York City. It established a U.S. subsidiary the following year. The company grew in the 1970s, with new subsidiaries developed or otherwise acquired, and spin-offs created. Growth also took the form of partnering agreements with companies such as Hitachi and Siemens and Amdahl.

Fujitsu was known up to this time for its large computers, including its mainframe models. It now launched another effort that would have great significance: the personal computer that it first introduced in 1981. On the other end of the scale, the company announced the development of its first supercomputer the following year. In 1984 Fujitsu introduced Japan’s first artificial intelligence processor. Throughout the 1980s, new computer models (mainframes, supercomputers, personal computers) were introduced at the same time that the company was developing other equipment such as digital telephone handsets that entered the inventory in the mid-1980s.

In the 1990s, Fujitsu partnered with or acquired several companies. Among the acquisitions were British International Computers Limited and Amdahl. Partnerships were established with General Magic (United States), Sun Micro Systems, Sharp, Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, Dialog Corporation, Siemens, and Sakura Bank (to establish an online bank in 1999).

The deal with Siemens, established in 1999, created Fujitsu Siemens Computers. The new organization became one Europe’s largest computer hardware suppliers and one of the world’s top five providers of servers, according to Fujitsu. In August 2008, Siemens announced that it wished to end the partnership largely because of lower prices and shrinking profit margins. While Fujitsu has the first right of refusal to buy Siemens’s 50 percent of the partnership, there was some doubt as to whether this would happen. Fujitsu’s objectives seem to be moving away from the manufacture of computers while increasing emphasis on cell phone development and manufacture.

Fujitsu has become well known for its manufacture of consumer goods such as air conditioners and plasma televisions (Fujitsu introduced the first 21inch full color display in 1992). Through the 1990s Fujitsu also continued its development and sales of supercomputers, sometimes on a very aggressive basis. Along with NEC, Fujitsu was named in a preliminary finding by the U.S. Commerce Department to be guilty of attempting to dump supercomputers on the U.S. market. It had bid to supply a supercomputer to the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and a suit was filed by the American computer manufacturer, Cray.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Fujitsu continues the development of supercomputers and continues its alliances, most recently with Microsoft, Oki Electric, and Lucent. In 2007 it bought Infinity Solutions Ltd., a New Zealand IT hardware, services, and consultancy company. In the same year, however, Fujitsu announced that one of its subsidiaries, Fujitsu Kansai Systems Ltd., had booked nonexistent sales, an incident similar to one that occurred at NEC as well as several other Japanese companies.

Fujitsu’s expansion now includes inroads in India where it is investing money with the intent of providing support for its Fujitsu Consulting India with more than 100 percent growth by 2009.

Bibliography:

Fumitaka Abe and Masao Kondo, “Research and Development at Fujitsu Laboratories,” Fujitsu Scientific & Technical Journal (v.43/4, 2007);
Claude E. Barfield, HighTech Protectionism: The Irrationality of Antidumping Laws (AEI Press, 2003);
Martin Fransman, Visions of Innovation: The Firm and Japan (Oxford University Press, 1999);
Masahiro Sakai, Akihiko Nagakura, and Naoko Goto, “Fujitsu’s Activities for Quality Assurance,” Fujitsu Scientific & Technical Journal (v.44/2, 2008);
Yuichi Sakai and Akihiko Miyazawa, “Fujitsu’s Innovation in Manufacturing and Engineering,” Fujitsu Scientific & Technical Journal (v.43/1, 2007);
Toshihiko Sugano and Tomohiko Maeda, “Innovative Manufacturing Activities in Fujitsu Group Plants,” Fujitsu Scientific & Technical Journal (v.43/1, 2007).

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