Based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, Fujitsu is a multi-international company that specializes in a wide range of computer hardware and consumer electronics products. Its specialties include personal computers, supercomputers, servers, semiconductors, air conditioners and telecommunications to name a few. World renown, Fujitsu has approximately 500 subsidiary companies and an estimated 160,000 employees. Throughout the years, it has been a rival of industry leading companies such as IBM and NEC.
Fujitsu has a rich history that spans more than 70 years. Founded in 1935, the company specialized solely in the telecommunications field until the dawn of the “Information Age” in the 1960’s. The first Fujitsu computers were created in 1961, leading to mass production in 1966. Its mainframe systems were mostly deployed in Japan until the launch of Fujitsu America Inc. in 1968.
The company established itself as an international entity throughout the 1970s, catering to office users with its FACOM line of computers. Fujitsu computers were right there at the advent of personal computing in the 1980s, introducing a number of units designed for home, workstation and enterprise users. It became a major player in the way of internet and networking technologies in the late 1990s, forming partnerships with names such as Intel, Siemens and Toshiba. Fujitsu steam-rolled into the new millennium, a decade that saw the introduction of its popular LifeBook series of notebooks as well as various products that catered to the emerging wireless and mobile PC markets.
Fujitsu has been at the forefront of innovation for longer than most, playing an integral part in the introduction of technologies such as HD TV, Flash and numerous solutions developed for the open-source market. While the competition has struggled in recent times, Fujitsu remains to be highly profitable, reporting consolidated revenues of an estimated $53 billion in 2008. A brand new roster of multimedia products and network solutions indicate that this company will continue to writer additional chapters in the history books.