Internet-TV Makers Endorse Microsoft's Broadcast Technologies

The Japanese companies supporting Microsoft's proposed broadcast architecture include Fujitsu, Hitachi, Matsushita Electric, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Sanyo, Sharp, and Toshiba. In addition, DirecTV Japan, Hitachi Home Electronics (America), Sony Electronics (Sony's US subsidiary), and Toshiba USA are also backing Microsoft's new technologies.

According to Microsoft, its new technologies (based on the SIPC technologies announced in April 1996) consist of broadcast components that will make the PC the center of entertainment, communications, and productivity in the home and in the office. PCs will be able to receive television programming plus data services and new forms of entertainment, blending the two. The user interface elements will be appropriate for use on large-screen display devices. Microsoft says that products and services to support these technologies will be available on the market by the end of the year.

A further look, though, reveals that most of the Japanese consumer electronics companies giving their endorsement have not yet decided whether or how they will use Microsoft's broadcast technologies for their new products. "It's really hard to decide at this moment which technologies we should employ, although we do think, when viewed in a long-term perspective, that SIPC is one of the potential technologies which may be able to help us in the future," says Terukazu Sawada, a senior manager of Sanyo's corporate planning office. "We've been paying a lot of attention to Microsoft's recent approach to the consumer information market, such as their development of SIPC and Windows CE. Since the market is so unpredictable, however, we can only say that these technologies offer a possibility to help us make user-friendly products in the future."

The world's first Internet-connected TV sets were released in Japan last year, but their sales have not been strong so far. The current Internet-TV manufacturers can be divided into three groups. One is the companies who hurried to release their first-version products and provided them with a large screen (accordingly putting a high price tag on them). Sharp and Mitsubishi Electric fall into this group. Sharp released a 32-inch screen TV at JPY330,000, while Mitsubishi released a 28-inch screen Hi-Vision model at JPY270,000.

The second group is those manufacturers who have announced the development of Internet-TV products but have not yet released them - such as Matsushita Electric and Victor Company of Japan. Because of the unfavorable sales results achieved by the frontrunners' sets, these manufacturers now seem to be wavering in their decision about the release timing of their products. The third group encompasses companies who have focused on providing low-priced products. Sanyo, for example, released a 28-inch screen Internet-TV priced at JPY198,000, and a 21-inch model priced at JPY115,000.

"Since Internet TV products have not sold well, as a whole, most manufacturers now face difficulties in determining their future plans for such products," observes Ryu Koriyama, chief executive officer of Aplix (a Tokyo-based venture company that provided browser software to Sanyo and Hitachi last year for their first-version Internet TV products). "For the development of their next version, they are coming to realize that the important thing is to provide the appropriate product concept that meets consumers' demands, such as low price. In this sense, I don't think SIPC will appeal to such manufacturers, since it is a technology that starts from a PC-side approach, not a consumer-oriented approach."

For more information about SIPC, see the press release at http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/apr96/sipcpr.htm and the hardware development paper at http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/pcfuture/sipc.htm

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Justsystem Rushes Launch of Ichitaro 8

According to Justsystem, Ichitaro 8 features a newly developed kanji conversion system, ATOK11, which performs conversion based on contextual analysis; Rich Text Format (RTF) support, which enables the import/export of text files prepared by other word-processing software; and an enhanced macro language, SuperPlayRite. Regarding Ichitaro 7, released in September 1996, Justsystem announced that its initial shipment reached 1.1 million. The company had forecast Ichitaro 7 shipments of 4 million units within the first year, but fierce competition from Word 96 made achievement of that goal unlikely. Thus the stepped-up and unexpected release of Ichitaro 8, which Justsystem views as a stronger product.

Microsoft says that this hastened release of a new version of Ichitaro is hard to understand, considering the conventional product development schedule and customer needs. "We are very surprised by this short-span version upgrade," admits a Microsoft spokesman. "In general, we have to spend about 12 months for minor version upgrades of our products, and 24 months for a major version upgrade. Taking customer needs into consideration, we believe this cycle is appropriate." Microsoft reportedly sees little threat from Ichitaro 8, and release of the next upgrade of Microsoft Word will be in accordance with the previously set schedule.

NEC, INRIA Cooperate on R&D

The R&D objectives of the project include the design and realization of a shared virtual memory across physically distributed memory systems; research into the functions of high-performance FORTRAN compilers; and integration of INRIA-developed parallel algorithms into NEC's automatic program generation system for finite element analysis applications.

Akia Enters Mac Clone Market

Regarding the new Mac OS models, Akia president Katsumi Iizuka says, "Akia always develops its products keeping the user foremost in mind while using the newest and best technology and components. This thinking is evident in the amount of memory and size of hard disk drives we normally offer.... It is clear that not only Mac users in fields like multimedia content production, DTP, medicine, and pharmaceuticals, but almost all Mac users, are not satisfied with the standard 16MB of RAM that comes with the machines."

Asked about the absence of laptop models, Iizuka explained that Apple has not yet licensed Akia to produce Mac OS system laptops. He hopes to have laptop models on the market within three to five months after receiving the licensing.

Akia's Mac OS systems will be sold primarily via telemarketing and direct marketing, with only limited sales through retail stores. Sales targets for the two desktop models are about 1,000 units each per month.

ASCII Offers Free Nationwide Net Access

Usage of ASCII Internet Freeway requires that the user download its proprietary communication software, Hot Cafe. For more information, see the following websites: http://www.aif.or.jp or http://www.asciinet.or.jp. Hot Cafe is also available from ASCII-Net.

Virus Reports Reach High in November

Reported to the IPA for the first time was the WordMacro/Colors virus, which infects Microsoft Word files. When a file is infected by this virus, its template cannot be displayed. On Windows 3.1, this virus also changes the window display color.

Computer viruses reported to IPA in November 1996
	cases	system(s)
Anti-CMOS	18	I
WordMacro/Colors	14	I
Cascade (1701)	11	I, N
Form	9	I, N
Yankee Doodle	6	N
Eleven other viruses had two to four reported cases each, and seven had one reported case each.
I = IBM-compatible system
N = NEC98 system