Fujitsu buys KAZ

The news came through yesterday that global IT services company Fujitsu has bought KAZ from Telstra. I first saw the news on MIS and took a minute or two to digest. Now this news probably isn't the most exciting thing in the world, or mean very much to lots of people but as a long time B2B/enterprise technology PR gal who has worked with a fairly large number of IT outsourcers, IT service providers and systems integrators over the years this news struck me as significant and therefore worthy of a blog post.

KAZ Group in its heyday was a bona fide Aussie success story; started by entrepreneur Peter Kazacos the company grew as the IT industry expanded, building its reputation for 'on time, on budget' delivery of IT services. Then in 2004, KAZ was purchased for a whooping $333million by Telstra in a time when telecommunications companies were going on an ICT spending spree. And now Telstra has divested itself of KAZ, perhaps in favour of sticking to its core telco offerings or perhaps because the price was right. Many people in Australia have fond memories of KAZ and so we can only hope Fujitsu restores and builds on some of that former glory.