Fujitsu hopes to almost double server sales in two years

Fujitsu is aiming to almost double sales of servers in the next two years as it absorbs Fujitsu Siemens Computers and reorganizes many aspects of its servers business into a single, global organization.

The company is aiming to sell 500,000 servers in its 2010 fiscal year, which ends in March 2011. That's almost double the 270,000 servers it sold in the financial year just ending, it said Monday.

"We have finally been able to have a full line-up of products that will make us more of a global company," said Kuniaki Nozoe, president of Fujitsu at a Tokyo news conference. Nozoe, who has led Fujitsu for nine months, said the target won't be an easy one to reach but set it as a clear target for the server business to achieve.

Fujitsu is looking to achieve most of its growth with its Primergy servers based on Intel chips. The Intel architecture market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5% over the next few years versus flat growth for Unix servers and a decline in mainframe business.

In Japan the company is hoping to turn sales of 80,000 servers in the year just ending into sales of 200,000 servers in 2010. The rest of the expansion, from 190,000 units to 300,000 units, will be achieved in Europe, Asia and North America, it said.

"What is very important is that we're not talking simply about a product line," said Richard Christou, senior vice president of Fujitsu. "We're talking about a whole new way of doing business globally and we need to transform Fujitsu's global business structure if we are to achieve the goals we've talking about and in particular the 500,000 sales of Primergy."

On Wednesday Fujitsu Siemens Computers, its European joint venture with Germany's Siemens, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fujitsu and that will enable Fujitsu to have for the first time a global offering for customers.

Under the new structure Fujitsu's research, sourcing, supply chain, planning and marketing will be unified globally under a single group that will be called Fujitsu Technology Solutions. Sales and service will continue to be handled on a regional basis with units in Japan, the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and China, said Christou.

Fujitsu is currently the fourth-largest vendor in the x86 server market with a 4% share, according to estimates from IDC. Even if it manages to achieve the 7 percent share it's after it will likely still trail third-placed IBM, which currently has a 14% share. The market is led by Hewlett-Packard, with a 35% share, and then Dell, with a 27% share.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.