Major change to my role at Fujitsu

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 12 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve dropped a few hints online about a change in my job at Fujitsu. Some, eagle-eyed LinkedIn connections saw me update my profile a couple of weeks ago to add a new position – as Fujitsu’s Head of Practice and Lead Architect for Messaging in the UK and Ireland – and today is my first day (although I’ve been picking up parts of the role for a few weeks now).

After almost three years in a strategy role, supporting two Chief Technology Officers with very different areas of focus, it’s time for a new challenge. My new role is a mixture of line management and practicing consultant so I’m actually returning to my technical roots whilst gaining additional experience of directly leading a team and being responsible for growing part of our business (including some challenging financial targets). Added to that, as messaging moves into our Business and Application Services service line, this is an opportunity for me to work in an applications business whilst building on many years of infrastructure experience.  There’s also some pretty exciting stuff going on with Microsoft (I’m not sure that’s announced publicly, so I won’t say anything more here) – but it’s a great time for me to be making this move.

Messaging is not entirely new for me – from the mid-1990s through to the mid-2000s, I worked on a number of NT and Microsoft Mail/Exchange migrations/implementations and I was one of the consultants working on ICL’s partner stand at the Microsoft  Exchange 4.0 UK launch roadshow.  In addition, one of my technical career highlights was the work I did at Polo Ralph Lauren, to design and project-manage a migration from Novell Netware to Microsoft Windows Server, from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange Server and to roll out a standard desktop build across Europe, in multiple languages, with just two Windows XP images (one uniprocessor and one ACPI). The success of that project was down to the professionalism and capabilities of the team around me – and it will be just the same in this new role.

As for this blog, well, I’ve been pretty busy for the last few weeks, as I’ve juggled two jobs – and I expect I’ll be just as busy over the coming weeks and months – but I’m still tweeting and I’ll still knock out the odd blog post too.  There might be some more Microsoft Exchange and Lync content but I expect that the usual mix of photography, social media and observations on the state of tech will persist.  This blog has been here for 9 years now, the content just shifts slightly as I do different things in my life and it seems that some people still find it interesting enough to read (or at least to subscribe)!

New job at Fujitsu Services – no longer blogging at Conchango

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last few years, I’ve been a consultant for a major IT Services company; worked for a UK-based support services company (and hated most of my time there); contracted for Australia’s largest independent magazine distributor; worked in-house designing and project managing a Europe-wide infrastructure refresh for a major fashion design, marketing and retail organisation; and then I joined Conchango, a mid-sized consultancy which specialises in delivering technology-driven business solutions that incorporate the latest methodologies and technologies.

I’ve worked with Conchango, first as a client and then as a consultant, for about 3 and a half years in total but the time has come for me to move on. For anybody who lives within commuting distance of London or Surrey, enjoys the variety of work which consultancy offers, and who knows a significant amount about enterprise intelligence, interactive media, agile development and program management, or mobility, Conchango is a fantastic place to work. It feels a bit strange to be leaving a company that I still enjoy and which is packed with talented people but as Conchango’s focus shifts away from infrastructure services, I’ve decided to rejoin Fujitsu Services (it was ICL when I was there just over 5 years ago) to embrace a new role as a Senior Customer Solutions Architect, taking technical responsibility for IT infrastructure projects within their Architecture and Design Group.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most at Conchango (apart from being lucky enough to feature in the IT press) is that they encourage blogging (there’s a whole load of Conchango bloggers now) although my blog output has prompted some to comment on its volume and to say they almost expect to see what I had for breakfast appear next! One of my clients says he can find out what he’s been up to by reading these pages! I just hope that what I write is useful and that people enjoy reading it. Since last November, most of my posts here have been mirrored on my Conchango blog – from today, that will no longer be the case, and as far as I know, Fujitsu doesn’t have company-sponsored blogs, so this site is once again the single focus of my technology-related blogging (although I still hope to have the occasional article published on the Microsoft TechNet Industry Insiders blog).

I’ve got loads of stuff waiting for me to write about (but not much time to write it) – in the meantime, watch this space…