Siemens has offloaded a chunk of its troublesome services business – but only to the computer maker it part-owns.

Siemens Business Services’ Product Related Services Unit has been sold to Fujitsu Siemens Computers, where it will form the core of a new service unit. Siemens is a co-owner of Fujitsu Siemens together with, unsurprisingly, Fujitsu. The truly cynical will be interested to know the deal is effective April 1 next year.

The German industrial giant had been looking to offload the whole services arm, which has been a thorn in the corporate side for some time. The rest of the Siemens Business Services arm will now concentre on Operation Related Services and Solutions, which account for three quarters of the whole business anyway.

Presumably Siemens would still be open to offloading the remainder of the services unit. It could be more attractive now the lower end product related business has been excised.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.®