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Fujitsu Siemens de-emphasises desktop PC biz

Mobiles and (yawn) services

Fujitsu-Siemens said today, in a London strategy briefing, that it will concentrate on its mobile computing business and services to back up its products for the next three years

Paul Stodden, the new chief executive at Fujitsu-Siemens, said users want mobile access now and the pressure is already on companies to deliver, even though the technology - for example, UMTS-based devices - will not be in place for a couple of years.

The company said its definition of mobile referred to the user, rather than the devices Joseph Reger, VP of strategic marketing, said that the company would be providing services that would keep its customers mobile.

Fujitsu-Siemens will also concentrate on providing infrastructure for its big corporate clients. According to Stodden the three factors that old economy businesses look for when getting online were security, reliability and service levels.

He said the shake out of the dotcom sector highlighted the lack of investment in infrastructure. This was changing, he said, as old economy companies is moving into the online space.

Reger said it would be no good if Fujitsu-Siemens started to prepare for the brave new world of communications and mobile devices two years from now. "Two years from now is much too late," he said.

This transition will happen only if companies could be convinced that it was a safe place to do business, and providing a safety net would be one way of doing that so the company plans to offer a wide range of support services to its customers.

According to Reger these services cannot be free - people who did not take advantage of them would then be losing money - and the company hopes this will help double revenues from services. At the moment 60 per cent of revenues are from PC sales.

It said it would spend E750 million over the next three years. The money would go towards hiring at 850 new consultants and to design and engineering, although the company would not say how much would be spent on each.

The company has incurred deep losses since it was created earlier this year. The company has been beset by management tensions since the merger and has lost market share to Compaq, one of its biggest rivals. ®

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