The Fujitsu and Reuters Partnership

Companies worldwide are changing their technological base, including their computer platform, every few years in order to make the most of the new innovations and reduce costs, as better hardware is used for increased efficiency. One of the companies that decided that it was time to replace its aging computer hardware base with a new platform is the news and media centered company Reuters.

According to the news site ENN, Reuters signed a contract with the Irish division of the Japanese computer hardware manufacturer Fujitsu, which is called Fujitsu Services. The Irish division with about a thousand workers will provide under the 10-year deal IT related services like computer desktop maintenance and e-mail services for the more than 17,500 Reuters employees that are based in almost 100 countries worldwide. Fujitsu Services will offer support to the Reuters workers from their call centers located in Lisbon and Kuala Lumpur. The news company estimates that the new arrangement concerning the company's IT activities will lead to important savings.

"This partnership will allow Reuters to accelerate the development of our internal IT services, giving us greater flexibility to respond to the changing needs of our business divisions. It will provide technology appropriate to the needs of our people wherever they are working around the world", said David Lister, Reuters chief information officer, in a press release concerning this event.

Just like Reuters, Fujitsu is a multinational company with more than 19,000 workers in around 20 countries and it invested heavily into the Irish zone as it just recently created 400 jobs in Derry and Belfast as part of a program to expand its European services into a new Managed IT Services Centre of Excellence. "For Fujitsu this is a ground breaking deal with a world-class global business which will introduce a common IT approach across their entire world-wide operations. It will help enable a step-change in Reuters productivity and hence competitiveness," said David Courtley, chief executive of Fujitsu Services about the recent contract between the two companies.