GOVERNMENT & POLICY

E-Money examined
The Ministry of Finance plans to examine electronic-money issuing companies. The ministry's council, which has been reviewing use of e-money and discussing how to improve the electronic commerce environment, will officially release a report on June 17. The report will suggest submitting an "e-money bill" to the Diet in 1999.

TELECOM NEWS

NTT restructures
NTT will reorganize its 12 engineering subsidiaries in sync with its effort to restructure its organization. The telephone company will merge its three subsidiaries in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and vicinity on April 1, 1999. The three companies had annual revenues of nearly 200 billion yen ($1.42 bil) in fiscal 1997. The new company, slated to be named MULTIMEDIA AND ENGINEERING, will aim for revenue of 300 billion yen (US$2.13 bil) in fiscal 2000.

NTT serves to protect business
Tokyo-based NTT INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS, a Type-2 subsidiary of telephone giant NTT, in July will start offering Enhanced Business Network Service (EBN), a new service that combines frame relay and the Internet to enable subscribers to develop low-cost, worldwide communications networks. The availability of encryption will give the new service security on a par with dedicated lines, according to NTT INTERNATIONAL. The company will in July start providing the service on an experimental basis to a number of think tanks, textile manufacturers and trading companies, with full-scale commercial services slated to start in September.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Arcstar expands
NTT and IBM of the U.S. have agreed to cooperate in international data communications services. NTT's subsidiary NTT WORLDWIDE TELECOMMUNICATIONS (WT) will connect its Arcstar international frame relay (FR) network with IBM's Global FR Network to provide FR services to Japanese corporations starting on July 1. The agreement will enable NTT WT to expand its international FR service areas from the current nine countries and regions to 46 countries and regions. NTT WT, which has a little more than 30 FR service subscribers, is aiming for FR service revenues of 3 billion yen (US$21.6 mil) in fiscal 1998.

Pandesic becomes local
INTEL and SAP AMERICA, the two key shareholders in California-based electronic commerce/Internet consulting venture PANDESIC LLC, will establish a wholly owned PANDESIC subsidiary in Japan in July. The new entity will localize and optimize its line of electronic commerce solutions for the Japanese market, and enjoy support from local partners NTT, NTT SOFTWARE, PRICE WATERHOUSE CONSULTING (PWC), YAMATO TRANSPORT, and TOYO INFORMATION SYSTEMS (TIS). PANDESIC JAPAN will initially focus on business-to-consumer applications.

E-business solution
FUJITSU BUSINESS SYSTEMS (FJB) has teamed up with NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS to create NAS Business Edition, an electronic-business solution. The partners will launch a Web integrated solution service business based on a Japanese version of Netscape Application Server (NAS), Web application server software.

BUSINESS BRIEFS

NEC and Canon integrates
NEC and CANON SALES have teamed up in the CTI (computer telephony integration) business. Together they will jointly develop and market a unified messaging system under different brand names. NEC will provide voice mail, PBX and other telephone technologies, while CANON SALES will contribute groupware and CTI function integration technology. The system will enable users to manage e-mail, voice mail and facsimile messages through groupware, convert e-mail into voice messages, forward e-mail to a fax machine, and use a PC to confirm, send and transfer a fax message. It is slated for release in October.

New IBM OS to overcome Y2K
IBM JAPAN will release IBM PC DOS2000, a new operating system that runs on INTEL 80286 or later microprocessors and which overcomes Y2K problems, according to the company. Available in both English and Japanese language versions, the new platform supports Windows 95, DOS, POS terminals and bank and trading room terminals. Both versions will be priced at 9,800 yen ($70). IBM JAPAN will unbundle different functions of the new operating system and provide them on an OEM basis to PC manufacturers. The company estimates that there are approximately 2.5 million PCs in Japan's finance and distribution sectors that still use DOS, and wants to leverage its existing software resources in new products.

INTERNET/EC

E-data made simple
NTT has claimed to have developed the first electronic data interchange platform which uses "H protocol," an EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) protocol designed for the domestic distribution industry. The platform allows retailers to select product categories on their PC screens, automatically receives data from the chosen manufacturers and suppliers, and then builds a database of products to be purchased. The system was created to simplify the labor-intensive process of ordering from conventional paper catalogs, according to an NTT spokesman.

Doubleclick doubles revenue
Internet advertising service DOUBLECLICK (JAPAN) has doubled its revenue forecast to 600 million yen ($4.1 mil) for the year through October 1998. The company also expects to double yearly revenues in succeeding years, and hopes to win a 10% share of the domestic Internet advertising market, which is forecast to reach \25-30 billion ($171.2-205.5 mil) in fiscal 2000. The Japan unit of DOUBLECLICK was established in September 1997 by parent DOUBLECLICK, NTT and TRANSCOSMOS, a leading information services firm.

All-purpose smartcards
MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL and MYCALCARD plan to commercialize a multifunction smartcard in January 1999. The two companies plan to issue more than 700,000 cards by March 1999, with MYCALCARD planning to completely switch to the smartcard in the future. The two companies expect the new smartcards to be initially used as credit cards, but will also incorporate electronic money and electronic verification. MYCALCARD has issued some five million cards, with approximately 700,000 Silver and Gold Cards from MASTERCARD, which will be converted to smartcards at no charge in January.

IN 50 WORDS OR LESS

NEC ranked first in the FY1997 domestic PC server market, shipping 47,500 units, up 63.8% year-on-year. FUJITSU and IBM JAPAN boosted shipments by 62.5% to 26,000 units. NIKKEI BP predicts that the leading PC server vendors will expand their combined shipments by 43% in fiscal 1998.

The Japanese database market expanded 19.3% year-on-year to \235.4 billion (US$1.69 bil) in 1996, according to the Database Promotion Center (DPC), marking the first increase since 1992. The center also reported that the US database market grew 21.3% to US $20.8 billion.

Japan has more than 10 million Internet users, according to research firm ACCESS MEDIA INTERNATIONAL (AMI) and the Internet Association of Japan (IAJ). The 27,000-household survey says that Japan had 9,007,300 Internet users as of February 1998, up 76.6% from February 1997, which by now has cleared the ten million mark, according to a spokesman.

DELL JAPAN will boost its Web operations, adding developers and services, to increase total Web sales to 50% by FY2000. DELL will also announce shipment and delivery information and provide a PC self-diagnostic service via the Internet. DELL JAPAN has sales of several dozen million yen daily.

IBM and KOJIMA have reached an agreement whereby KOJIMA will take orders for IBM's home PCs and have them delivered directly to consumers from the IBM assembly plant within two days. By enabling simple distribution and reducing inventory, it is sure to change the Japanese computer market,say industry watchers.

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