Fujitsu makes SAAS acquisition in U.S.
Fujitsu Consulting in the U.S. has bought Okere, a New York-based consultancy and software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider.
Okere Asia-Pacific chief, Paul Cousins, said the terms of the deal were undisclosed. Okere was a private company, formed by Australian-born John Orrock in 2000 to offer SaaS to financial services companies, he said.
"We have the ability to deliver quality and a faster time to ROI [using SaaS]," Cousins said. "Customers don't need to invest heavily in infrastructure. Massive IT shops are becoming a thing of the past."
Fujitsu Consulting said in a statement that Okere served large global enterprises, providing strategic planning, design and deployment services involving CRM and custom SaaS.
The consultancy would form a business unit within Fujitsu, it said.
Okere's Asia-Pacific operation was growing, according to Fujitsu Consulting.
Cousins said Okere partnered Salesforce.com in Australia, where it had 12 customers.
"I expect [the buyout] will affect the relationship and also expand their availability in this market too. [Fujitsu] is the third largest IT services organization globally," Cousins said.
No staff redundancies were planned as a result of the acquisition, he said.
Cousins, who has been with the company two years, was cagey about how many staff the company had in Australia, saying only that it was "a small number".
"I'm not prepared to let on how many," he said.
Globally, Okere had 100 staff, Cousins said. The company's website lists one other APAC staff member - regional services head and founder Brennan Burkhart.
Internationally, Okere also partners the likes of Oracle, Informatica and AppExchange.
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