OREANDA-NEWS. March 28, 2011. Fujitsu is supporting Britain’s entrepreneurs and start-ups through the StartUp Britain initiative announced today by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. The initiative, which has been formed by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs and was highlighted in last week’s Budget speech, is about helping new and start-up business get off the ground by providing more affordable access to the products, services and advice they need when starting out. As part of StartUp Britain, Fujitsu is offering businesses access to the IT infrastructure they require to operate effectively (e.g. computer processing power, an IT network, hardware servers, computer storage, IT back-up etc.) all run entirely in ‘the cloud’, i.e. hosted online rather than in a business’ own premises. This means new businesses are able to set up quickly, avoid the up-front investment costs of buying IT equipment and the space needed to house it, not to mention the environmental impact of all that equipment in businesses across the country. Instead they are able to run on a pay-as-you-go model with the ability to scale up or down as their business grows and save up to 40% of their costs at the same time.

Simon Carter, director of government marketing for Fujitsu UK & Ireland, comments: “Fujitsu is delighted to be supporting David Cameron’s initiative. For any small business starting out the capital expenditure required to kick off can be enormous and quite worrying. The beauty of a ‘cloud’ model is that it becomes a day-to-day operating expense, rather than a capital one, making it easier to flex and manage financially as the business changes and grows. There is no locked-in long term contract and once on our system, a business can literally have everything up and running within 30 minutes”.

Carter continued: “What is so exciting about this new wave of technology is that IT becomes an enabler for businesses of all shapes and sizes, old or new, to compete on a fair and equitable level. StartUp Britain is a way of bringing the “Big Society” ethos to a business environment – something that Fujitsu supports wholeheartedly and we are proud to be part of.”
Fujitsu’s offer to StartUp Britain companies is:

Free 30 day trial
In order for companies to understand whether this is the right approach for them, Fujitsu is offering any entrepreneur or small business who applies via the StartUp Britain initiative, a 30-day free trial period if they sign up by 15th July. This free 30 days is worth up to Ј3,000 to an average small business.

10% off the first 12 months’ cloud service bill
What is more, any business that applies via StartUp Britain will receive a 10% discount (off Fujitsu’s standard fees) for its first year of service. This is estimated to be worth up to Ј2,500 for an average small to medium business.

About Fujitsu’s cloud services
Fujitsu’s cloud propositions enable customers to use IT services hosted online in a pay-as-you-go model. Services can be increased or decreased at any time and all the technology and hardware is owned and managed by Fujitsu. This ultimately reduces IT investment for businesses as they only pay for what they use and do not need to invest in IT equipment or specialist IT staff. Fujitsu’s cloud services are all hosted in one of the company’s own data centres in the UK which is the only Tier III, Gold Certified data centre outside of the USA.

Companies can go to http://uk.fujitsu.com/startupbritain to sign up or via the main StartUp Britain website.