Centrica powers desktop management with Fujitsu

Centrica has awarded Fujitsu a five-year contract to provide its Desktop Managed Services (DMS) offering to 25,000 users across its UK business.

The energy company, which trades predominantly in Britain and the US, adds the new DMS service to its existing Fujitsu-operated service desk contract.

Essentially a Fujitsu-branded term, DMS is a desktop management system designed to help standardise across devices and enable greater use of virtual clients and mobile devices.

As a component of its systems management plans, Centrica said it would implement Fujitsu's desktop management system as an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) layer, delivered using Fujitsu high-end servers and storage. It will be hosted in one of Fujitsu's UK datacentres.

"As Centrica grows both organically and through acquisition, the IT capabilities and support we provide our people in doing their jobs is critical," said Centrica's group chief information officer (CIO), David Bickerton.

"Therefore our desktop services, which increasingly involve adoption of mobile devices, become ever more critical to the efficient running of our business and the IT experience we provide our people."

Fujitsu UK chief operating officer, Gavin Bounds, insisted desktop management should not be viewed as a commoditised service that is simply installed and forgotten about.

"It is clear that customers are seeing the strategic opportunity offering significant cost reductions, improved user productivity, greater peace of mind and considerably more flexibility for their desktop estate," he said.

"The virtualised environment is now giving even greater opportunity to realise the benefits that DMS can bring."