Fujitsu speeds TTM, expands security with Microsoft Dev Box, GitHub Copilot

Innovating for people in a fast-changing and complex world

In a world where change is the only constant and new challenges emerge daily, Fujitsu imagines solutions that use technology to make happier lives. That means infusing security into every aspect of development, and Fujitsu’s traffic management systems are just one example. Fujitsu far surpasses the traditional approach of expanding traffic and city infrastructure. Its analysts connect human behavior patterns with real-time traffic flows, digital signage, smartphones, and car navigation systems to optimize the ways that people move around a city, all while keeping data secure. It applies that same ingenuity to all its human-centric innovations.

But staying ahead of those societal and technological changes—and the competition—requires lightning-fast development speed on a highly secure development platform. Fujitsu’s previous approach was to configure a physical device for every developer, for each project, as a way of meeting all the security and compliance requirements for the system under development. That usually included a multitude of client and nation-specific standards, magnifying project complexity for the multinational company. 

Aside from the operations team involvement of buying and initially configuring the hardware prior to shipping to dev teams, developers then usually sank a week of precious time into fine-tuning the configuration. Working on multiple projects meant working on multiple devices, and ensuring security often infringed on productivity. So, Fujitsu turned to a platform renowned for combining security and speed: Microsoft Azure.

Freeing developers to focus on the code with AI and cloud-based tools

“Developers want to code, not spend hours configuring hardware,” points out Takeya Waki, Senior Manager of the Enabling Technologies Division, Corporate Digital Unit (CDU) at Fujitsu. And when developer talent can be concentrated on creative problem-solving, everyone wins. That’s why Fujitsu’s CDU built its Developers’ Platform (DP), customized to the globe-spanning, confidential, and highly innovative work that the company’s developers perform.

As a longtime devotee of Microsoft developer tools, the CDU knew that Microsoft Dev Box offers enormous advantages to a globally distributed development team. The cloud-based developer workstations eliminate the inconvenience and expense of hardware, not only freeing developers from weeks of configuration duty each year, but also relieving the operations team of procurement and setup tasks. That translates to the speed and accuracy that Fujitsu needs to realize its customers’ visions.

Deploying Microsoft Dev Box satisfied the Fujitsu dev team’s zeal to focus solely on realizing cutting-edge solutions, but they needed to step up production in line with company goals. And in line with developers’ drive to focus on innovative problem-solving, rather than writing universally used blocks of code over and over again, the CDU turned to GitHub, an AI-powered developer platform, and introduced GitHub Copilot. The tool opens up numerous productivity hacks for developers, such as the ability to apply sweeping changes throughout the code base by using Agent mode. GitHub Copilot handles repetitive tasks like testing and validating results at the direction of the developer. Yet it can also deliver intelligent assistance, like stepping in with proposed edits and help with errors. 

Proving that intense security needn’t compromise action

Above all, Fujitsu insists on protecting its customers, its data, and its innovation. Ensuring security can be complicated for a global entity, though. “Fujitsu is targeted daily by external threats, and balancing our security focus with productivity was challenging,” explains Hideharu Noguchi, Senior Director of the Enabling Technologies Division, Corporate Digital Unit (CDU) at Fujitsu. “Despite constant vigilance, new attack methods emerge every day, and when security teams are forced to act quickly, developer convenience suffers. We believe that GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Dev Box are the best way to maximize secure productivity across the entire Fujitsu organization.”

By standing up Microsoft Entra ID as its cloud-based identity provider, Fujitsu tailors the exact access specifications for each development environment so that only the right people access that project. Thanks to the single sign-on options in Entra ID, they do so seamlessly at the level of security the project needs.

Reducing risk in a standardized environment that flexes as needed

CDU administrators can set up multiple projects in line with overall company standards for security and governance. Meanwhile, they can also customize the Microsoft Dev Box instances for each developer or project team according to the needs of the project: workflows, goals, and configurations. With the project policies feature, they can restrict access to resources such as network connections, SKUs, and other resources to ensure compliance along with data privacy. “We’ve lowered our information leakage risk, thanks to the easily created virtual environment in Microsoft Dev Box and the ability to set the level of required isolation between different projects,” says Waki. 

For Shojiro Shiratori, Head of the Enabling Technologies Division, Corporate Digital Unit (CDU) at Fujitsu, overall standardization is key to nailing down security along with a range of other benefits. “Standardization has enhanced our provisioning speed,” he says. “It also makes it much easier to control governance for each project. This means that we can deliver our solutions much faster, especially products under development for international customers. And think of the benefits of standardization applied across 120,000 users—we’re beginning to experience significant cost savings.”  

As a cloud-based solution, Microsoft Dev Box creates a beneficial synergy between security enhancements and operational efficiencies. “With Microsoft Dev Box, we have standardization that we’ve never had before,” continues Shiratori. “Thanks to the built-in security, developers no longer deal with firmware updates and other time-consuming tasks.​” 

The CDU complements the secure environment it has created with Microsoft Dev Box by applying the security capabilities in GitHub Copilot.

Transforming the world—with safety and speed

After just one year of Microsoft Dev Box use, Fujitsu has made enormous strides toward the more easily secured, productivity-first development environment it needs to meet its long-term goals. Having introduced GitHub Copilot just six months later, it’s already realizing substantial benefits. The company’s pilot group of 2,400 developers using GitHub Copilot are spending less time to achieve more. As the full development team comes on board throughout 2025, those savings will magnify. “Our developers using Microsoft Dev Box and GitHub Copilot decreased their workload by 20%. Over a year, we expect that to total 375,000 hours saved—a massive benefit for Fujitsu,” says Shiratori. 

Every aspect of the innovative Fujitsu Developers’ Platform—security, productivity, and cost savings—advances the company’s goals and delivers more to its customers. “We’re saving time and money and intensifying security with Microsoft Dev Box. With Microsoft, every minute we save makes a difference to our bottom line—and to the people who depend on our solutions,” concludes Noguchi. 

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