Type | Joint venture |
---|---|
Industry | Information technology |
Founded | 1999 |
Defunct | 2009 |
Fate | Siemens' stake acquired by Fujitsu, became Fujitsu Technology Solutions |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Richard Christou (Executive Chairman) |
Products | Infrastructure Products, Infrastructure Solutions, Managed Infrastructure Services, Infrastructure as a Service |
Number of employees | Approximately 10,700 (as of March 2009) |
Parent | Fujitsu, Siemens |
Fujitsu Siemens Computers GmbH was a Japanese and German vendor of information technology. The company was founded in 1999 as a 50/50 joint venture between Fujitsu Limited of Japan and Siemens of Germany. On April 1, 2009, the company became Fujitsu Technology Solutions as a result of Fujitsu buying out Siemens' share of the company. [1]
The offerings of Fujitsu Siemens Computers extended from handheld and notebook PCs through desktops, server and storage, to IT data center products and services. Fujitsu Siemens Computers had a presence in key markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, while products marketed elsewhere were sold under the Fujitsu brand, with the services division extending coverage up to 170 countries worldwide.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers placed a focus on "green" computers, [2] and was considered a leader or innovator in Green IT, across ecological and environmental markings such as Energy Star and Nordic swan. [3]
Fujitsu Siemens sponsored McLaren Mercedes Formula-1 team in 1999 and 2000.
On the Fujitsu side, the origins of the company could be traced back to the mid-1980s merger of the PC divisions of Finnish Nokia and Swedish Ericsson, when Ericsson PCs were known for their ergonomics and bright colors. In 1991, Nokia Data was sold to the British International Computers Limited (ICL). Later ICL was absorbed by Fujitsu. Ironically, Fujitsu was originally the data division of Fuji Electric, whose name was derived from its founders; "Fu" from the Furukawa Electric zaibatsu, and "Ji" from jiimensu, the Japanese transliteration for Siemens.
The Nokia MikroMikko line of compact desktop computers continued to be produced at the Kilo factories in Espoo, Finland. Components, including motherboards and Ethernet network adapters were manufactured locally, until production was moved to Taiwan. Internationally the MikroMikko line was marketed by Fujitsu as the ErgoPro.
Also on the Fujitsu side, the company fully acquired Amdahl corporation in 1997 which was a manufacturer of IBM compatible mainframes. The mainframe market was an area where Siemens also had a strong presence in, especially in Europe. The mainframe strategy of Siemens was different however as it produced its own line of mainframes that were not IBM compatible. Before the acquisition of Amdahl, Fujitsu also already had its own division that produced IBM compatible mainframes so the Amdahl acquisition was part of a market consolidation effort.
The German half of the company, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme, was the result of the merger of Nixdorf Computer with Siemens' data and information technology branch.
In 2003, the company won the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for their use of information technology in an industry-transforming way.
It was announced in November 2008 that Fujitsu would buy out Siemens' stake in the joint venture for approximately €450m with effect from April 1, 2009. [4] Fujitsu Siemens was the last major Japanese/European computer manufacturer.
The Fujitsu takeover went ahead as planned on April 1, 2009—with the company renamed Fujitsu Technology Solutions. [5] The FSC website was terminated.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers' products included:
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code is an eight-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding six-bit binary-coded decimal code used with most of IBM's computer peripherals of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is supported by various non-IBM platforms, such as Fujitsu-Siemens' BS2000/OSD, OS-IV, MSP, and MSP-EX, the SDS Sigma series, Unisys VS/9, Unisys MCP and ICL VME.
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large but not as large as a supercomputer and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. Most large-scale computer-system architectures were established in the 1960s, but they continue to evolve. Mainframe computers are often used as servers.
Fujitsu Limited is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. It is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the largest in Japan, in 2021. The hardware offerings from Fujitsu are mainly of personal and enterprise computing products, including x86, SPARC and mainframe compatible server products, although the corporation and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in the areas of data storage, telecommunications, advanced microelectronics, and air conditioning. It has approximately 126,400 employees and its products and services are available in approximately 180 countries.
BS2000 is an operating system for IBM 390-compatible mainframe computers developed in the 1970s by Siemens and from early 2000s onward by Fujitsu Technology Solutions.
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme, AG (SNI) was formed in 1990 by the merger of Nixdorf Computer and the Data Information Services (DIS) division of Siemens.
Amdahl Corporation was an information technology company which specialized in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products, some of which were regarded as supercomputers competing with those from Cray Research. Founded in 1970 by Gene Amdahl, a former IBM computer engineer best known as chief architect of System/360, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu since 1997. The company was located in Sunnyvale, California.
Lifebook is a line of laptop computers made by Fujitsu, which also offers a range of notebooks and tablet PCs within the same Lifebook family.
International Computers Limited (ICL) was a British computer hardware, computer software and computer services company that operated from 1968 until 2002. It was formed through a merger of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), English Electric Computers (EEC) and Elliott Automation in 1968. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.
Nixdorf Computer AG was a West German computer company founded by Heinz Nixdorf in 1952. Headquartered in Paderborn, Germany, it became the fourth largest computer company in Europe, and a worldwide specialist in banking and point-of-sale systems.
VM 2000 is a hypervisor from Fujitsu designed specifically for use with the BS2000 operating system. It is an EBCDIC-based operating system. It allows multiple images of BS2000 and Linux to operate on a S-series computer, which is based on the IBM System/390 architecture. It also supports BS2000, Linux and Microsoft Windows on x86-based SQ-series mainframes. Additionally, it can virtualize BS2000 guests on SR- and SX-series mainframes, based on MIPS and SPARC respectively.
SINIX is a discontinued variant of the Unix operating system from Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme. SINIX supersedes SIRM OS and Pyramid Technology's DC/OSx. Following X/Open's acceptance that its requirements for the use of the UNIX trademark were met, version 5.44 and subsequent releases were published as Reliant UNIX by Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
Since the rise of the personal computer in the 1980s, IBM and other vendors have created PC-based IBM-compatible mainframes which are compatible with the larger IBM mainframe computers. For a period of time PC-based mainframe-compatible systems had a lower price and did not require as much electricity or floor space. However, they sacrificed performance and were not as dependable as mainframe-class hardware. These products have been popular with mainframe developers, in education and training settings, for very small companies with non-critical processing, and in certain disaster relief roles.
MikroMikko was a Finnish line of microcomputers released by Nokia Corporation's computer division Nokia Data from 1981 through 1987. MikroMikko was Nokia Data's attempt to enter the business computer market. They were especially designed for good ergonomy.
UTS is a discontinued implementation of the UNIX operating system for IBM mainframe computers. Amdahl created the first versions of UTS, and released it in May 1981, with UTS Global acquiring rights to the product in 2002. UTS Global has since gone out of business.
DC/OSx (DataCenter/OSx) is a discontinued Unix operating system for MIPS based systems developed by Pyramid Technology. It ran on its Nile series of SMP machines and was a port of AT&T System V Release 4 (SVR4). In 1995, Pyramid Technology was acquired by Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme (SNI), and DC/OSx was superseded by the SINIX operating system.
Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH is a Munich-based information technology vendor in the so-called "EMEIA" markets: Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. A subsidiary of Fujitsu in Tokyo, FTS was founded in 2009 when the parent firm bought out Siemens' 50% share of Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
PRIMERGY is Fujitsu's brand name for x86-architecture designed servers. The brand name PRIMERGY represents a range of servers from single-socket over dual-socket to quad-socket systems. Eight socket systems are branded differently with "PRIMEQUEST," whereas Fujitsu servers in the UNIX/Mainframe world, also known as SPARC systems, are named "Fujitsu M10" and mainframes "BS2000."
SESAM / SQL Server is a relational database system originally developed by Siemens, whose role as developer was successively succeeded by Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme (SNI), Fujitsu Siemens Computers, and now Fujitsu Technology Solutions. It runs on the BS2000/OSD mainframe.