Tokyo, September 21, 2000---Fujitsu Limited, Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to collectively as "Microsoft") today announced that they have reached an agreement to form a comprehensive global cooperation to expand their WindowsR platform enterprise solutions business.
Key Features of the Alliance
(1) Strengthening support and service from system planning phase
Calling upon its long experience and know-how in mission critical systems configuration, Fujitsu will set up a Windows Platform Center on October 1, 2000 to carry out design and application verification services for various combinations of Fujitsu's hardware and middleware, and Microsoft's Windows 2000 products and MicrosoftR .NET Enterprise Servers software. The center, which will be established within Fujitsu's Software Group, is expected to initially have a staff of 100, rising to 200 after three years. In addition to allowing both companies to fully verify the usability of the Windows platform for the large-scale enterprise systems market, focusing on mission critical and Internet business systems requiring high availability, the center will help the companies to strengthen their collaborative relationship on a customer-by-customer basis. Customers' systems development will be able to benefit from the results of this collaboration, and Fujitsu intends to build a customer reference base of 850 cases over the next three years.
Primarily through the new Windows Platform Center, Fujitsu plans to train some 11,000 of its systems engineers in Microsoft technologies, including more than 1,000 in MCSE, MCSD and MCDBA.
(2) Product and Technology Alliance
The alliance will also strengthen product-level technical cooperation between the companies from the product development stage for Fujitsu's middleware offerings (INTERSTAGE, SystemWalker, COBOL, etc.) and Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers. The companies will also engage in joint development and promotion activity on a global basis using these products.
Moreover, the alliance will strengthen development and sales promotion efforts in the field of next-generation platforms such as high-end IA32/IA64 servers.
Through this alliance with Microsoft, Fujitsu has set the following specific objectives:
- To offer Windows platform solutions with greater reliability, availability and scalability in order to provide customers with "one-to-one" individualized enterprise system solutions that they can rely on;
- Double its Windows-related corporate solutions business (including hardware, software, support and service) in three years; and
- Gain top share in the domestic Windows-based IA server market.
Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
About Fujitsu
Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) is a leading provider of Internet-based information technology solutions for the global marketplace. Comprising over 500 group companies and affiliates worldwide -- including ICL, Amdahl and DMR Consulting -- it had consolidated revenues of 5.26 trillion yen (US$49.6 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000. Fujitsu's pace-setting technologies, world-class computing and telecommunications platforms, and global corps of over 60,000 systems and services experts make it uniquely positioned to unleash the infinite possibilities of the Internet to help its customers succeed. Altogether, the Fujitsu Group has 188,000 employees and operations in over 100 countries. Internet: http://www.fujitsu.com/
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device.
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