The company was established in 1935 under the name Fuji Tsūshinki Seizō (富士通信機製造, Fuji Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturing), a spinoff of the Fuji Electric company, this in turn being a joint venture between the Furukawa mining company and German conglomerate Siemens. Despite its connections to the Furukawa zaibatsu, Fujitsu escaped the Allied occupation of Japan mostly unscathed.
By 1954 Fujitsu had rolled out Japan's first computer, the FACOM 100, and 7 years later its transistorized big brother FACOM 222 joined the fray. In 1967, the company's name was officially changed to the contraction Fujitsu (富士通).
Today Fujitsu, the communications spinoff of the electric spinoff of a mining company, employs some 200,000 people and has another 500 subsidiary companies itself. The active partnership has been revived in the form of Fujitsu-Siemens (est. 1999), Europe's largest IT supplier owned 50/50 by Fujitsu and Siemens. Internationally, Fujitsu considers IBM to be its main competition. Its historical domestic rival is NEC. Major acquistions include UK-based ICL and US-based Amdahl.
External links:
Official Website
History