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Business Briefs
Softbank launches bundling
business
Softbank in mid-February launched a channel assembly business through which it bundles software and package peripheral devices with PCs based on specifications requested by dealers. The move is intended to boost the declining profitability of the company's mainstay PC software distribution operations. The company has established a Softbank Configuration Center (SCC) business development unit, and has teamed up with six software firms (including Microsoft Japan, Justsystem, and Lotus Japan), six peripheral device vendors (such as 3Com Japan), and several PC makers (including Compaq Computer Japan and Hewlett-Packard Japan).
Fujitsu, Oracle target ERP market
Fujitsu Business Systems (FBS) is entering the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software market. The company plans to release a string of accounting, personnel, payroll, and other information system modules designed for midsize firms. In February, it set up a new dedicated ERP organization and launched training efforts to improve staff ability to propose and implement ERP solutions to corporate customers. Most companies installing complex ERP systems are large firms, but FBS sees strong potential among midsize firms.
Oracle Japan, meanwhile, is revamping and strengthening its ERP software sales organization. The company is transferring to its ERP division those employees in its database products direct sales organization previously in charge of manufacturing sector clients, and will revamp its sales partner system. In line with US-based parent Oracle's attempt to recast itself as a package-based solutions firm, Oracle Japan is driving to expand its share of the fast-growing domestic ERP business.
Hitachi helps firms tackle Y2K issue
Hitachi Software Engineering (HSE) is offering corporate training services in how to deal with the Year 2000 problem. Trainees can bring in programs that need to be rewritten to overcome the year calculation design defect, and HSE instructors will provide a three-day course in actually fixing the problem. The company has been offering the course twice monthly since February at its Back Office Solution Center in Tokyo.
Foreign interest in DoCoMo
technology
NTT DoCoMo and Philippine carrier Smart Communications have signed a memo of understanding whereby Smart Communications will cooperate in the development of NTT DoCoMo's next-generation wideband CDMA (code division multiple access) cellular telephone standard. The agreement follows on the heels of a similar announcement of cooperation with DoCoMo by leading Hong Kong carrier Hutchinson Telecom. Carriers in Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand have already announced their support for NTT DoCoMo's W-CDMA standard, and Chinese carriers are said to be showing strong interest.
Japanese firms win Chinese
backbone order
Fujitsu and Nissho Iwai have jointly won an order for an optical communications project from China. The Chinese posts and telecommunications ministry will invest \1 billion to construct a backbone network between Nanning and Kunming, via Guiyang, over a distance of 1,500 km. Construction will start in July and is to be completed by December. The network will use five 2.5G-bps SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy) optical lines, which will be able to accommodate 160,000 lines. With communications traffic in China projected to jump 28% year-on-year in 1998, competition among Japanese, European, and US communications equipment makers is likely to intensify.
Seiko-Epson to make inkjet
cartridges in China
Seiko-Epson will produce inkjet printer cartridges in China at a recently completed \400 million line at its Tianjin plant. The initial monthly output capacity will be 100,000 units, and plans call for investing another \400 million to double the plant's capacity to 200,000 units within this fiscal year. The company, which manufactures 3.5 million and 750,000 cartridges per month in Japan and Mexico, respectively, wants to build a stable supply capability in the Asia market, where demand is expected to soar.
MCU-based elliptic curve
encryption
Mitsubishi Electric has developed a technique to integrate an elliptic curve encryption program into a general-purpose microcontroller unit (MCU). The program is divided into sections for different processes, which helps reduce computation and the amount of data temporarily stored in main memory. The size of the program is compressed to 4KB, about one-quarter the size of conventional programs. When implemented on a 16-bit MCU, the program takes just 0.9 second to create and approve an electronic signature. Mitsubishi plans to commercialize an MCU embedded with an electronic approval function by mid-1998, and will license the technology.
New low-cost contactless ID
Seika Sangyo, an exporter of Mitsubishi machinery, has developed in cooperation with semiconductor manufacturer Asahi Kasei Microsystems and two other firms a contactless ID tag system that enables tags to be read from as far away as 1 meter. The new type of tag requires no batteries and allows tags to be manufactured for less than \200 per unit, less than one-fifth the cost of conventional contactless tags. The partners claim the new system can simultaneously read several tags at once, a capability once considered extremely difficult. Possible applications include not only manufacturing plant process and inventory/distribution management, but also in consumer-oriented settings such as ski lifts.
Seiko-Epson has entered the color laser printer market with the April release of a 600-dpi unit. Fuji Xerox and Fujitsu have also announced plans to enter the color laser printer market this year. Canon is current market leader with a 74% share, followed by NEC.
Fujitsu will stop manufacturing its own 64-bit RISC processors and switch to Intel microprocessors (MPUs) for use in high-end models of its GranPower6000 series of office computers. The company has been using Intel MPUs for the series' entry level and midrange models since May 1997.
NEC intends to eventually use recycled plastic for all PCs it manufactures. The company will use recycled plastic for the desktop PCs it markets in spring 1998. If the project goes as planned, NEC will be able to recycle more than 100 tons of plastic in the first year.
Communications equipment shipments in Japan are likely to reach \5.15 trillion in FY2002, according to a report published by the Communications Industry Association of Japan (CIAJ).
Lotus Notes was the top groupware choice among corporations in 1997, according to Nikkei BP. Notes will have shipped 40,000 server and 3 million client units in FY 1997, followed by Fujitsu TeamWare (20,000 server and 1.5 million client copies) and Microsoft Exchange Server and NEC StarOffice.
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