The birth of Fujitsu Sorbus Espana SA is the final consequence of the absorption of ICL Espana SA by the Spanish subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd in October 1996. Fujitsu Sorbus Espana will take over the services operations of what used to be ICL Sorbus Espana and will be wholly owned by the Fujitsu ICL Group. Managing director of the new company Julio Navarro told Computerworld Espana: From now on we are going to concentrate on selling a series of horizontal information platform services. Navarro added that the independent company would be wearing two hats: on the one hand it will seek to be the services arm of Fujitsu ICL, while it will also continue the strategy begun by ICL Sorbus to find a niche in the market as a heterogeneous systems service company. Navarro allayed fears that the initiative would lead to any more blood- letting with respect to jobs, since Fujitsu and ICL have already finalized their employment adjustments arising from the merger last year, he affirmed. Fujitsu Sorbus will have a team of 420 staff and revenue of $48.2m for the next fiscal year has been targeted. Its organization will be geographically-based rather than sector-oriented, since according to Navarro, services – whatever information system they may focus on – are rendered in similar fashion in the financial and industrial sectors, as well as in the area of public administration. Fujitsu Sorbus inherits considerable experience and know-how in the world of mainframe maintenance, which will be one of its key business areas, the other ones being departmental systems, client-server environments and facilities management. A help desk service will also be offered.
