Fujitsu, Siemens team up for IT services

The companies on Monday announced a pact in which Siemens Business Services will support Fujitsu customers in areas of North America and Europe, while Fujitsu will help Siemens serve clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

The agreement covers a range of services, including consulting, systems integration and outsourcing complex IT infrastructures.

Through the deal, Fujitsu will offer its multinational Japanese customers improved services in parts of Europe and North America where it does not operate directly, the companies said. The Siemens group, similarly, will improve its service for global customers by drawing on Fujitsu's resources in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the companies.

Japan-based Fujitsu and Germany-based Siemens already have a partnership in making computers, called Fujitsu Siemens Computers. "Having collaborated with Fujitsu for years in many projects, we have built a trustworthy relationship with each other," Paul Stodden, group president of Siemens Business Services, said in a statement.

Siemens Business Services is a Siemens unit with about 34,500 employees worldwide. According to market researcher Gartner, it ranked 16th worldwide in IT services revenue in 2002, at $5.1 billion.

Fujitsu, which makes a wide range of technology products, ranked third in IT services revenue in 2002, at $14.5 billion. Ahead of Fujitsu were IBM, at $40.1 billion, and Electronic Data Systems, at $21.1 billion, according to Gartner.