Delimiter » mike foster

Fujitsu, Service Stream to build NBN in new estates

Renai LeMay — Fri, 13 May 2011 00:40:30 +0000

The National Broadband Network Company this morning confirmed it had appointed Japanese technology giant Fujitsu to roll out the portion of its nation-wide fibre network in new development estates, in a deal initially worth $100 million over its first year.

The deal was first reported by the Australian more than a week ago, but NBN Co issued a statement this morning with further details.

“Fujitsu and their construction partner Service Stream will provide a managed service including network design, construction and installation works in new developments,” said NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley, “working alongside NBN Co’s operations team to integrate with our business and operating systems.”

The NBN Co chief said since the start of this year, NBN Co had received more than 1,480 applications from the developers of new estates to have the fibre rolled out in their area, representing about 133,000 premises to be connected across Australia in total.

“These applications are submitted for individual stages of developments, but due to construction timeframes and housing demand, fibre deployment will be spread over a period of up to three years,” Quigley added. “NBN Co will work with developers to deploy fibre as and when it is needed. Our partnership with Fujitsu is a key milestone for NBN Co as it allows us to start deploying fibre into these new developments across the country concurrently.”

NBN Co’s statement said that Fujitsu would manage the design, construction and associated works for the deployment of fibre to new developments, with the initial value of the deal estimated at over $100 million for the first 12 months. It will sub-contract some work to specialist telco and utility construction company Service Stream.

“We are proud to be part of one of the biggest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Australia, bringing digital services to the nation,” said Mike Foster, the new chief executive of Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand.

The news represents one of the first public positive steps forward with respect to the construction of the NBN since the company’s construction chief Patrick Flannigan resigned from his role in early April, following the breakdown of negotiations with some 14 construction firms about the nation-wide network rollout.

Prior to joining NBN Co in December 2009, Flannigan was the founding managing director and CEO of Service Stream.

NBN Co is currently investigating alternative options for the construction of the network.

Image credit: Sambo9

Foster confirmed as Fujitsu CEO

Renai LeMay — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:06:51 +0000

Senior Fujitsu executive Mike Foster has been confirmed as the permanent chief executive of the technology giant’s Australia and New Zealand operations, following his acting appointment in the role after the promotion of his predecessor Rod Vawdrey.

Vawdrey was earlier this month promoted to be the vice president of Fujitsu’s Global Business Group, after holding the position of CEO and MD for Fujitsu A/NZ since 2003.

Under his guidance, Fujitsu achieved several major acquisitions in Australia, including local IT services company, KAZ, in 2009. At that time Foster was KAZ’s managing director. After the acquisition, Foster became a group executive director of sales and business development with Fujitsu, a role which was perceived in the industry as being second in charge to Vawdrey.

Prior to working at KAZ, Foster had joined Telstra in 2000, where he held the position of managing director for business and government sales.

“Mike brings a wealth of experience to the role as well a broad knowledge of the Australia/New Zealand market,” Vawdrey said today. “We have much to be proud of with the accomplishments of FANZ over the last five years in achieving profitable growth year on year. I am confident that, under Mike’s leadership, FANZ will continue to build on that success.”

Image credit: Fujitsu

Foster takes over as Fujitsu’s Vawdrey promoted

Marina Freri — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:17:12 +0000

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand chief executive Rod Vawdrey (pictured, second from right) has been promoted to be the vice president of Fujitsu’s Global Business Group, a move which will see him leave his long-held role leading the company’s local operations.

In a brief statement issued yesterday, Fujitsu Ltd announced Vawdrey would replace Richard Christou, who had resigned from his role after three years, to become corporate executive adviser for global affairs. According to his personal LinkedIn page, in his capacity of vice president, Christou was in charge for all Fujitsu’s business outside Japan.

Vawdrey had held the position of CEO and MD for Fujitsu A/NZ since 2003. Prior to joining the group, he worked as sales and marketing vice president at NCR. His shoes will be filled in an acting capacity by Fujitsu executive and former KAZ MD Mike Foster. It appears this story was first broken by iTNews.

On his Linkedin page, Vawdrey states he has 25 years of experience in the ICT industry, beginning as a graduate trainee in 1978 and gaining a variety of experiences that led him to move through sales to general management and business leadership. Besides his role at Fujitsu, Vawdrey is also one of the board directors at the Australian Information Industry Association and the father of six children.

Under his guidance, Fujitsu achieved several major acquisitions in Australia, including local IT services company, KAZ, in 2009. At that time KAZ’s managing director was Mike Foster who after the acquisition became Fujitsu ANZ group executive director of sales and business development. Prior to working at KAZ, Foster had joined Telstra in 2000, where he held the position of managing director for business and government sales.

Image credit: Fujitsu

Is our SAP user group too close to SAP?

Renai LeMay — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:17:51 +0000

opinion I’ve spent a lot of time with Australian chief information officers in the past half-decade, conducting hours and hours of interviews with some of the biggest names in the business.

I know them well – as well as any journalist can know his field. I know what they like, what they don’t like, and what they’re suspicious of. That’s why the SAP Australian User Group’s announcement today that it would create its own SAP-focused CIO Council to focus dealings with the German software giant rang a bit sour with me.

You see, the thing that Australian CIOs are most suspicious of is anything that smells too strong of vendors trying to take advantage of them. And while SAUG’s CIO Counci is a laudable initiative on the surface, it has a strong smell of vendor floating around that it just can’t shake.

For starters, the announcement was issued by SAP’s own public relations agency, Burson-Marsteller.

I have nothing against BM – there are some great people that work there, and they do a good job for SAP. But their involvement in SAUG’s release appears to show that at some level, SAP was involved in the announcement. This idea is further backed up by the lone sentence in the statement that “SAP is actively supporting the CIO Council and will be actively involved at an executive level.”

That statement, no doubt, would have had to be approved by SAP Australia executives – maybe even the local managing director, Tim Ebbeck – as most of the vendor’s public statements undoubtedly are. And it doesn’t make clear exactly what SAP’s involvement will be.

The question needs to be asked — would SAUG go through BM to issue a statement, say, critical of SAP prices rises — a stance which the UK SAP user group has taken from time to time? If so, this would be a clear conflict of interest.

The agenda for the first meeting of the CIO Council in March also rang sour for me. Sure, SunLife Financial Group CIO Mark Edward Ross will be presenting and will likely give insights into how the company’s own implementations are going. This is the sort of thing other CIOs love to hear about.

However, after Ross has presented, it looks like Mike Foster of Fujitsu (a key SAP partner) and SAP’s own Mark Hettler will be presenting.

I don’t know whether the pair will be allowed to sit in on all the meetings of the CIO Council, but if I know anything about CIOs, I know that they will not talk frankly and openly about their IT projects while vendors (or even journalists like myself) are in the room.

Again, I have nothing against either – Foster in particular is a lovely bloke who I’ve spoken to at various points over the years. But their attendance at the meeting seems to me to be not in the best interests of the CIOs, who of course can call either at any time for an update.

I’ve attended a number of conferences over the years which have had certain sections closed to both the press and vendors for exactly this reason. There are some secrets of customer-vendor relationships that are best kept behind closed doors – at least if the CIO concerned wants to keep his job.

I’d love to hear from some IT managers and CIOs out there about what they think of SAUG’s latest moves. Is it just me, or this one vendor relationship that is a little too close?