Kathy Gibson at Fujitsu Forum, Munich – Fujitsu last week announced a joint venture with Lenovo and the Development Bank of Japan — but it shouldn’t be seen as a move to “offload” its PC business to the Chinese manufacturer.
The agreement will see Fujitsu selling a 51% stake in the wholly-owned subsidiary Fujitsu Client Computing Limited (FCCL) to Lenovo and a 5% stake to DBJ. After the transaction, FCCL will become a joint venture company owned by Fujitsu, Lenovo and DBJ and will continue to be known as FCCL.
The joint venture companies will focus on the research, development, design, manufacturing and sales of client computing devices: PCs, laptops, tablets and peripherals such as displays.
Duncan Tait, corporate executive officer: senior executive vice-president and head of Americas and EMEIA at Fujitsu, is adamant that Fujitsu will retain control and ownership of its brand.
“We believe clearly that our ability in global sales, customer support, R&D, highly-automated and efficient manufacturing and systems integration is a differentiation for us,” he says.
“However, we also want to take advantage of the scale and purchasing power that Lenovo has; and believe it has great benefit for our channel partners and customers.”
Fujitsu is not exiting the product business, Tait stresses. “We are making it stronger and more competitive by using partners to enable it.
“We will design, sell, distribute and service the technology. And will continue to manufacture in Germany.
“This will continue to be the Fujitsu brand,” Tait says.