Joint online commerce development effort

Part of IPA Electronic Commerce Promotion Project

In late July, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC announced that they will cooperate on joint development of a consumer-oriented common platform for electronic commerce (EC) appropriate for typical Japanese trade and business practices. The joint effort comes as part of the Electronic Commerce Promotion Project initiated by the Information-technology Promotion Agency in Japan, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

The three companies will work on developing a common EC platform, called Secure Electronic Commerce Environment (SECE), that is suitable for typical Japanese payment practices, such as the bonus-payment system. SECE comprises a Secure Commerce Protocol, which consists of a payment protocol for transactions between consumers, merchants, and financial institutions; a certificate management protocol for electronic authentication; API specifications for client software; and client software libraries. SECE will be made compatible with the SET (Secure Electronic Transaction) protocol proposed by VISA International and MasterCard International.

Previously, Fujitsu and Hitachi had tried to work together for the development of an electronic commerce platform in Japan, but the effort met with little success. NEC is expected to play a mediator role in the current project for promotion of a common EC platform, in particular because NEC is a core member of another EC project of the Sumitomo group that involves Sumitomo Bank, Sumitomo Credit Service, and Japan Research Institute.

"We don't deny that they [Fujitsu and Hitachi] expect us to promote negotiations with the Sumitomo group for their involvement [in the SECE project] to make a de facto EC platform standard," says Shuji Nakata, NEC's senior manager in charge of the SECE project. "But, basically, the three of us will proceed with the project together, based on the results of our discussions and consensus, and we will not seek to benefit any particular entity."

The SECE project features support for credit card payments and bank transactions, electronic verification, and multiple encryption algorithms. For the encryption algorithms, the companies are currently considering the world's most popular ones, such as RSA, DES, and SHA. In addition to these, however, Hitachi is seeking to have its MULTI secret-key encryption algorithm included. Because the objective of the project is to set the common standard for Japan's overall EC business scene, however, it seems unlikely that the other SECE project members will accede to Hitachi's wishes.

"Since our primary objective is to develop an EC platform that can be widely supported, we have to justify the characteristics of SECE that we are going to include," says Nakata. "For the sake of Japan's consumers, and also the financial institutions, we can't afford to have a standardization conflict such as that we once experienced with the Beta versus VHS format for VCRs."

To promote widespread acceptance by end users and enterprises, specifications of the Fujitsu-Hitachi-NEC joint development efforts and client library software will be made available free of charge. An alpha version of SECE (with credit card payment capabilities) is scheduled to be released in February 1997, followed by a beta version (with bank transaction capabilities added) in September 1997 and the final (complete) version in February 1998.

The results of the SECE project will be utilized by six other MITI-led projects, such as the Electronic Commerce Settlement Project being conducted by credit card companies (MasterCard International and UC Card) and several banks, as well as Fujitsu and Hitachi, and the Cyber Card System Platform Development project whose participants include JCB, Hitachi Credit, Nomura Research Institute, Hitachi, and Oki Electric. Development results will also be reviewed and discussed by technical working groups of the Electronic Commerce Promotion Council of Japan.

For information about electronic commerce in Japan (in English), see http://www.ecom.or.jp/ecom/eng/index.htm.

Get an MS in engineering, by satellite

Nippon Wilson learning (NWL), through a tie-up with National Technological University (NTU), a Colorado-based institution for media-based continuing education, has started providing a satellite-based educational program for engineers. Universities participating in the NTU program include Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Renselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of California, Berkeley, and 43 others. The program consists of engineering education programs selected from the participating schools.

There are two main paths in the NTU program. One is the NTU Academic Program (AP), through which students can pursue a Master of Science degree in such areas as computer science, electrical engineering, and engineering management. The other is a collection of non-credit short courses, known as the Advanced Technology and Management Program (ATMP), geared toward such current business needs as client/server technology, data communications, networking fundamentals, and HyperText Markup Language.

The NTU programs, via broadcast transmission or on tape, are offered in Japan at the NWL headquarters in Tokyo and at the sites of corporate members. For reception of the satellite broadcasts at a member site, special ground facilities costing JPY2.5 million or more are required.

Student tuition for the courses at NWL is about JPY60,000 per broadcast ATMP course or JPY20,000 per videotaped ATMP course. Members can receive both broadcast and videotaped courses at their own site for about JPY330,000 for ATMP courses and JPY345,000 for AP courses (plus an annual membership fee of JPY700,000).

For information on the NTU engineering educational program in Japan, contact Nippon Wilson Learning at phone 03-5276-1157.

Spring PC sales reach new high

Will Japanese PC makers enjoy another banner year? Quite likely, if spring sales in metropolitan regions are any indication. It was reported by a Tokyo-based research firm that personal computer sales for the spring quarter (April through June) in three major electronics discount districts (in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya) totaled 210,000 units. This is a 65% increase from the same period in 1995. These three areas are estimated to account for about 15% of domestic PC shipments during the quarter (1.4 million units), up 3.5 percentage points over the previous year.

PC sales in Tokyo's Akihabara district were up 66%, reaching 136,000 and accounting for 9.8% of all domestic shipments. NEC's PC98 series computers accounted for 31% of Akihabara sales, down 4.4 points from the previous spring, followed by IBM Japan with 16.1% (up 1.8 points), Fujitsu with 15.9% (up 3.1), and Apple Japan with 15.1% (down 2.0).

Resource Groups for Visual Basic Programmers

Japan's Microsoft Visual Basic developers can now turn to two new users groups for support. The Visual Basic Users Group Japan (VBUG) and PC Developer Network Visual Basic Course (PCDN), both founded in August, are intended to facilitate the exchange of technical information and services through Japan's major PC networks and the Internet.

VBUG has a forum on NIFTY-Serve (GO VBUG) where its members can share information through a frequently-asked-questions list and data library. VBUG's annual membership fee is JPY6,000. For information, contact VBUG by e-mail at gbe01476@niftyserve.or.jp, or visit its Web site at http://www.vbug.or.jp/.

PCDN, meanwhile, targets corporate users by providing technical know-how via the Internet for the development of practical applications constructed with Microsoft Visual Basic. The PCDN annual membership fee is JPY98,000. For information, e-mail PCDN at info@int21. co.jp/, or check its Web site at http:// www.int21.co.jp/pcdn/.

Cellular phone subscriptions climb
But PHS sales remain sluggish

Japan's cellular phone carriers recorded a combined 857,100 new subscriptions in June, beating the previous monthly high by 13,000 units. This brought total subscriptions to 12.6 million, meaning that more than one in ten of the population owns a cellular phone. Over one-third of cellular phone users signed up in the first half of 1996, surpassing the number for all of 1995.

Market observers credit the record growth to rate cuts in April and May. By carrier, the nine NTT DoCoMo firms picked up 382,000 new subscriptions, followed by the eight Cellular Phone firms with 165,100, the three TuKa companies with 104,700, the three Digital Phone companies with 102,700, IDO with 65,200, and the two Digital TuKa firms with 37,400.

PHS (personal handyphone system) sales, meanwhile, experienced their third month-on-month a drop in June, to just 369,000, although sales rebounded to 406,000 in July. Analysts attributed the July increase to broader service areas, cheaper handsets, and aggressive sales promotions timed to coincide with July bonuses. July subscriptions pushed the total installed PHS handset base to just over the 3 million mark.

Top 9 computer viruses reported to IPA in June 1996

cases system(s)

Anti-CMOS 20 I

Cascade (1701) 9 N

Yankee Doodle 7 I,N

Winword concept 6 I

D3 5 I

FORM 4 I

B1 3 I

Monkey 3 I

Beijing 2 I

Seven other viruses (MBDF, Angelina, Anti-TELEFONICA, SAMPO, Stealth Boot, Nasita, and Ripper) had one reported case each.

I = IBM-compatible systems; N = NEC98 systems.

Source: IPA

IPA issues virus report

The Information Technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), has released a survey of computer viruses reported to the agency in June 1996. Among the 66 cases of virus infection, 46 were transmitted by infected floppy disks and hard disks, 3 came through overseas e-mail and 1 through domestic e-mail, and 16 infections came via unknown sources

For information, or to report a virus, contact the IPA Computer Security office at phone 03-3437-2301, fax 03-3437-2537, or send e-mail to virus@adm.ipa.go.jp.