Gemplus japan, the tokyo-based subsidiary of Gemplus, has announced that the company will offer, in spring 1998, three new types of IC (integrated circuit) cards, mainly for telecommunications business applications. Gemplus Japan will also establish a Card Personalization and Data Center in KDD's Oyama network center to provide closer support for KDD's IC card businesses. (KDD and NTT Data are Gemplus shareholders.)

The first new IC card to be introduced is GemXpresso, a Java Card (Java API 2.0-based) smartcard utilizing a 32-bit RISC processor. (Today's conventional smartcards use 8-bit microprocessors.) The GemXpresso is to be introduced in Japan in cooperation with NTT Data. Potential applications of the card include as a SIM (subscriber identity module) card for cellular phones and as a credit card. To support development of the card's Java-based applications, Gemplus Japan is opening a Java Smartcard Studio this month (February).

A second new IC card to be introduced in Japan is a contactless card made of paper (0.27 mm thick) or plastic (0.25 mm thick). The contactless IC card can be used as a telephone or train/subway card. For this type of card, Gemplus views NTT as a lucrative potential customer since NTT has announced that it will begin changing existing public phone cards over to a contactless IC card in 1999. Contactless cards need not touch the reader head of a card-reading device, have lower maintenance requirements than contact cards, and are much more difficult to counterfeit than magnetic stripe cards.

The third type of new IC card from Gemplus Japan is EarthCard, an environmentally friendly card made of chlorine- and halogen-free polyester film. The EarthCard was jointly developed with ICI in the UK. The higher durability and greater heat resistance of this card makes it suitable for mobile phone applications, including use as a highway toll charge card or subscriber ID card. Such cards tend to be kept in high-temperature environments, such as inside a parked car on a sweltering summer day.

Gemplus Japan also will support KDD's IC card businesses, such as IC Global Phone, a public international phone service utilizing an IC card, and potentially next-generation mobile or global cellular satellite-based phone systems. As a first step, Gemplus is setting up its Card Personalization and Data Center in KDD's Oyama network center, which will be a core of KDD's nationwide fiber-optic submarine network scheme, Japan Information Highway. The center will offer IC card management and encoding, Java applet transfer, cross-border client certification, and customer facility management services.

Gemplus estimates that the use of smartcards in Japan will reach 300 million cards per year by 2002.

For more information about the new cards, contact Gemplus Japan at 03-3238-8300, or see http://www.gemplus.com/ presse/g_japan.htm.�

Computer Associates, Fujitsu ship first pure database object solution

Computer associates and fujitsu have begun shipping Jasmine, the first pure object-oriented solution for next-generation database applications in such fields as electronic commerce, telecommunications, financial services, health care, and insurance. Jasmine comes with comprehensive class libraries for creating and managing multimedia data, including bit maps, animation, audio, and full-motion video. Jasmine's object-oriented architecture eliminates the overhead associated with mapping objects to relational structures.

The Jasmine Application Development Environment, JADE, provides an easy-to-use, code-free multimedia authoring and application development environment with tools for rapidly

designing and debugging applications. Jasmine's open architecture also allows developers to use a wide variety of popular tools, including 100%-pure Java, C, C++, native HTML, and Visual Basic or any other ActiveX tool. Jasmine also facilitates development of cross-functional and specialized class libraries for

current and future business needs, and provides native access to relational and other data sources, such as OpenIngres, Oracle, Informix, SQL Server, CA-IDMS, CA-Datacom, and DB2.

The pricing for Jasmine starts at $800, with discounts for volume purchases. The initial release supports Unix and Windows NT servers as well as Windows 95 and Windows NT clients.

For more information, see the relevant sections of http://www.cai.com and http://www.fujitsu.co.jp.�

PC shipment growth stagnant in 1997
5% market growth predicted for �98

The growth of pc shipments in japan was sluggish in 1997, and this trend will continue at least through the first half of 1998 before picking up slightly. Recovery of the market in the medium term will depend on growth of the midsize business segment, according to market research firm IDC Japan.

IDC Japan forecast in December 1997 that Japan's domestic PC shipments for the calendar year would reach 8.11 million units, up by a mere 0.2% from the 8.09 million units shipped in 1996. Reasons for the market stagnation included the increase of the national consumption tax rate from 3% to 5% in April 1997, the prevalence of higher-priced, value-added PCs, and the poor economic environment in Japan on the whole. These factors hindered purchasing by home users and small and midsize companies for PC-related products in 1997.

Japan's PC shipments enjoyed a healthy 11.4% year-on-year increase for the January-March 1997 quarter, and 6.9% year-on-year growth in the April-June quarter. The PC market suffered a 10.8% year-on-year decline in the July-September 1997 quarter, however, and seemed set for a 5.9% year-on-year decline in the October-December quarter.

In 1998, says IDC Japan, growth of the PC market will be weak in the first half and relatively strong in the latter half. The spur for this growth will be a drastic transition to the Pentium II with the release of Windows 98, and a drop in CPU prices that will pave the way to low-priced home PCs.

IDC Japan forecasts that domestic PC shipments in 1998 will increase by 5.3% year-on-year, reaching 8.54 million units. The research firm also says that Japan's PC market will be favorable in 1999 and 2000, with 15% and 14% year-on-year growth, respectively since the replacement of large systems with smaller units can be expected. IDC Japan anticipates that shipments will reach 11.18 million units in 2000.

In an analysis of the market by product type, IDC Japan found that, despite sluggishness of the overall PC market, the demand for portable PCs was strong in 1997, accounting for about 40% of the total market. This was a sharp increase from 1996's approximately 30%. The portable PC market should continue to grow in 1998, surpassing 44% of units shipped. Shipments of small notebooks are forecast to reach 760,000 units in 1998, accounting for nearly 9% of the total PC market, while full-size notebooks will reach 2.95 million units, for a 34.5% share.

Desktop PCs are expected to reach 4.58 million units in 1998, or 53.6% of the market. This would be a drop of about 30,000 units from the 1997 shipment figure.

Some 256,000 PC servers will ship in 1998, meanwhile, for a 3% market share. In the PC server segment, product differentiation will increase as users move to either high-end multiprocessor servers or low-end file and print servers.

IDC Japan's forecasts are based on the shipment data of 30 companies selling PCs in the Japanese market and the company's proprietary market analysis.

Fujitsu's Stylistic goes into orbit

Fujitsu's pen-input tablet computer, the stylistic, became the first mobile computer used on a space shuttle during takeoff. On board the US space shuttle Columbia, on mission STS-87 launched in November 1997, the Stylistic was strapped onto the thigh of one of the astronauts. It was used to display the current location and orientation of the shuttle, and to identify a predicted touchdown point. For this purpose, the Stylistic was equipped with Worldmap, a Windows-based software application developed by SPOC (Space Operations Computing) programmers at the Johnson Space Center.

The Stylistic is a pen-input Windows-based color computer currently available only in the US market through Fujitsu Personal Systems, a Fujitsu affiliate. It measures about 18 x 27 cm and weighs 1.6 kg. Since space shuttle astronauts wear a full space suit, including gloves, during launch and landing, the Stylistic's pen-input interface was deemed an easier method of inputting and retrieving data than a keyboard-based computer.�

AOL Japan bundles software with PCs

Aol japan has announced tie-ups with 11 japanese PC manufacturers to bundle its AOL 3.0 connection software. The AOL software will be placed in the boxes of about 5 million new PCs this year. Ten Japanese PC manufacturers - NEC, Matsushita, Sony, Compaq, Sharp, Sanyo, IBM, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and Epson - started bundling AOL 3.0 with their PCs in late 1997, and Canon Sales will soon do so.

Among the products that now include the AOL software in their boxes are NEC's PC98 and PC98-NX, Sharp's Mebius, IBM's Aptiva S, and Epson's ViViDY series computers. AOL plans to bundle its software with digital cameras and other peripherals in the future.�

Motorola ties up with Japanese venture for MC68000 enhancement

Motorola has tied up with yokohama-based venture company Excellent Design to extend the capabilities of its MC68000 microprocessor family by creating a high-performance core that is compatible with object software code. The 32-bit processor core, designed by Excellent Design and licensed by Motorola, delivers four times the processing power of a standard 16/32-bit 68000 core operating at the same clock speed. The enhancement makes the processor suitable for use in portable, battery-powered devices, including handheld computers that use object software applications.

Excellent Design is an independent semiconductor design company whose design portfolio includes 8-bit CPU cores, a standard I/O library, video encoder and decoder cores, and a PCI bus model in addition to the new core. The company provides a portfolio of products including a standard cell design library and memory compilers.

"This is very important for expanding our intellectual property business," says Hisashi Mizumura, president of Excellent Design. "This contract will help us continue to expand our global design business."

For more information, contact Ken Edwards of Motorola's New Media Division (r14518@email.sps.mot.com) or Hitoshi Yamakawa of Excellent Design (yamakawa@exd.co.jp, or 045-474-9410).

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