Japan Computer Industry Scan articles from February 2003

Japan Computer Industry Scan archives from February 2003

LEAD: Mitsubishi Electric to end PC server production.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING WITH MORE INFO) Mitsubishi Electric Corp. plans to outsource all production of its personal computer (PC) servers, company officials said Tuesday. Industry sources said Mitsubishi Electric...

NEC, Oki tie up to offer IP phone services to businesses.
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo NEC Corp. and Oki Electric Industry Co. said Tuesday they have agreed to tie up to promote Internet Protocol (IP) telephony among corporate clients in Japan. The deal calls for jointly building an IP telephony...

Microsoft Japan confirms 10 cases of 'SQL Slammer' infection.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo The ''SQL Slammer'' computer virus has been confirmed to enter only 10 computers in Japan, a far smaller magnitude of damage than in other countries, Microsoft Co. President Shinichi Ata said Tuesday. The Japan...

Taiwan firm to invest in Fujitsu's LCD unit in Japan.(AU Optronics Corp.)(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo Fujitsu Ltd. said Tuesday that a Taiwan manufacturer of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), AU Optronics Corp. (AUO), will shortly invest in the capital of its Kanagawa Prefecture-based subsidiary operating in the same...

Matsushita-Toshiba CRT joint venture to start April 1.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday they will integrate their overseas cathode-ray tube (CRT) operations in a joint company to be formed on April 1. Based on a basic agreement...

Microsoft launches Japanese version of Windows Media Player 9.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday began to distribute the Japanese version of its digital media software, Windows Media Player 9 Series, company officials said. The new software, which enables...

Toshiba to take over Amuse Pictures.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday it will make Amuse Pictures Inc., an independent movie distributor in Tokyo, a wholly owned subsidiary later this year. Toshiba will buy a 67% stake in Amuse Pictures from its parent...

Dell Computer notably advances in Japan PC market in 2002.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Dell Computer Corp. of the United States ranked fourth with an 8.0% share in the Japanese personal computer (PC) market in volume terms in 2002, advancing from the seventh slot in the previous year, Multimedia...

Global PDA shipments drop 9% in 2002, Sony expands share.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... NEW YORK, Jan. 30 Kyodo The global shipment of personal digital assistant (PDA) devices dropped 9% in 2002 from the previous year, while Japan's Sony Corp. reported a steady growth in both global and U.S. markets, the U.S. high-tech...

Toshiba develops new low-noise, high-frequency transistor.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 3 Kyodo Toshiba Corp. said Monday it has developed high-frequency silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistors that can be used for the low-noise amplifiers essential for global positioning systems and wireless local area networks....

LEAD: Japan Telecom to begin IP phone service for business use.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 3 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ANNOUNCEMENT BY TTNet) Japan Telecom Co. said Monday it will launch discount Internet protocol (IP) phone services for corporate subscribers in April. Discount services will be possible as Japan...

Yahoo! BB ADSL subscribers double in 4 months to 2 mil.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 3 Kyodo The number of subscribers to the Yahoo! BB asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) high-speed Internet access service on Monday grew to over 2 million, double its figure in September, Softbank BB Corp. said. ...

ADSL popularity sees rise in no. of NTT fixed-line subscribers.(Brief Article)
February 3, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 3 Kyodo The tally of subscribers to fixed-line phone services of NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. as of Dec. 31 grew by 70,000 over three months earlier to 50.68 million due to the surge in the number of ADSL subscribers,...

J-Phone having technical trouble in mobile e-mail service.
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 4 Kyodo J-Phone Co., a mobile phone unit in Japan of Britain's Vodafone Group PLC, said Tuesday it was experiencing technical trouble in its wireless Internet e-mail service in western Japan, affecting about 4.5 million...

Nova to offer lessons at home via fiber-optic network.(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... OSAKA, Feb. 4 Kyodo Foreign-language school operator Nova Co. said Tuesday it will begin using a fiber-optic network next Monday in classes for students taking lessons at home. The new service will use the fiber-optic network run by...

Toshiba arm to offer gadgets to turn Gameboy into video player.(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 4 Kyodo Venture firm am3, an affiliate of Toshiba Corp. and Bandai Co., said Tuesday it will start offering in May a set of gadgets for making Nintendo Co.'s Gameboy Advance console into a portable video player. The...

Pentax to launch world's smallest 3x lens digital camera.(Pentax OptioS smaller than a business card)(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 4 Kyodo Pentax Corp. said Tuesday it will launch the world's smallest and lightest digital camera equipped with a 3x optical zoom lens on March 15. The OptioS is smaller than the average business card, measuring only 83...

Ricoh posts 19.5% group net profit surge in Oct-Dec.(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 5 Kyodo Ricoh Co. said Wednesday its group net profit in the October-December quarter surged 19.5% over a year earlier to 17.80 billion yen due mainly to sales expansion in network basic input/output system (NetBIOS) devices...

NTT Communications to begin IP phone service in March.(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 5 Kyodo NTT Communications Corp. said Wednesday it will launch a discount Internet-based subscriber-line phone service March 1. The Internet protocol (IP) telephone service, called ''OCN.Phone,'' will enable users to make...

Nintendo unveils folding GameBoy game console.(handheld folding GameBoy Advance SP console )(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 5 Kyodo Nintendo Co. unveiled Wednesday its handheld folding GameBoy Advance SP console set to go on sale Feb. 14 with an ambitious sales target of 2 million units by the end of March. GameBoy Advance SP features a...

Ehime Univ. team develops substance 'harder than diamond'.(polycrystalline diamond )(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... MATSUYAMA, Japan, Feb. 6 Kyodo Researchers at Ehime University have succeeded in synthesizing a polycrystalline diamond that is harder than natural diamond, announcing the results in Thursday's edition of the British science magazine...

Yahoo Japan makes underwear show video available online.(Brief Article)
February 10, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 7 Kyodo Japan's biggest Internet portal Yahoo Japan Corp. said Friday it has begun making a video of a women's underwear fashion show produced by popular model Ai Tominaga available on its ''Yahoo Beauty'' site. The show...

Telecom venture eAccess to double speed of ADSL access.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 10 Kyodo Telecommunications venture business eAccess Ltd. plans to launch as early as May a new asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) Internet access service that will have a maximum speed of 20-24 megabits per second,...

Images of Nikon's new digital camera leaked before release.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 10 Kyodo Images of a new Nikon Corp. digital camera, which the company plans to unveil shortly, have been leaked and posted on some Internet sites providing information about digital cameras, Nikon officials said Monday. ...

Pioneer, TDK to boost speed of DVD recorders: paper.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 12 Kyodo Pioneer Corp. and TDK Corp. will jointly develop technology to increase the recording speed of DVD recorders to four to five times normal, from the current double speed, a Japanese business daily reported Wednesday....

Toshiba, Infineon develop RAM with highest memory capacity.(ferroelectric random access memory technology)(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 12 Kyodo Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday it and Infineon Technologies AG of Germany have jointly developed a ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) technology which provides ''the highest memory capacity yet reported'' for a...

Mitsui-Soko, postal agency tie-up for parcel delivery.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 12 Kyodo Mitsui-Soko Co. said Wednesday it has agreed with the Postal Services Agency to combine their respective warehousing and small-parcel delivery services. The tie-up will enable companies to outsource whole...

No. of subscribers to DSL services tops 6 mil. at end of Jan.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 12 Kyodo The number of subscribers to digital subscriber line (DSL) high-speed Internet access services topped 6 million at the end of January, growing by more than 1 million in two months, the telecom ministry said Wednesday....

Hitachi, Oracle to reinforce storage tie-up.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 13 Kyodo Hitachi Ltd. and U.S. software company Oracle Corp. said Thursday they have agreed to reinforce their cooperation in the field of storage solutions. The agreement, which also involves their subsidiaries Hitachi...

2ND LD: 'Game over' for Sega upon merger with Sammy in Oct.(Brief Article)
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 13 Kyodo (EDS: RECASTING WITH MORE INFO, BACKGROUND) Sega Corp. and Sammy Corp. said Thursday they will integrate business operations by Oct. 1, essentially bringing up the ''game over'' screen for Sega which once boasted...

BizTrend: Number of Net access service subscribers peaking.
February 18, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 15 Kyodo Most of Japan's major Internet service providers are starting to see a leveling off in the growth of the number of subscribers to their services. The number of people newly subscribing to broadband high-speed,...

Bandai to adopt holding firm structure under new 3-yr plan.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 18 Kyodo Toy maker Bandai Co. said Tuesday it will adopt a holding company structure by March 2006 under a new three-year business plan to be implemented in April. Under the plan, the company aims for a group pretax...

Softbank Investment unit, Keio Univ. tie up on biotech.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 19 Kyodo Softbank Investment Corp., an affiliate of Softbank Corp., said Wednesday its Biovision Capital Corp. has agreed to form an alliance with Keio University to nurture start-up ventures based on Keio's biotechnology...

Square to end joint venture accord with Electronic Arts.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 19 Kyodo Game software maker Square Co. said Wednesday it will terminate its tie-up agreement with Electronic Arts Inc. of the United States at the end of March and dissolve their joint ventures in Japan and the U.S. ...

NEC's BIGLOBE to offer IP phone service from March 1.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 19 Kyodo NEC Corp. said Wednesday its BIGLOBE Internet service provider (ISP) will start offering a cut-price Internet protocol (IP) telephony service on March 1. This follows a similar announcement by Sony Communication...

Domestic server shipments sink 12.3% in 2002: poll.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 20 Kyodo Domestic shipments of servers skidded 12.3% in 2002 from a year earlier to 403,395 units, the first fall since 1996 when its annual poll started, Gartner Japan Ltd. said Wednesday. On a value basis, the shipments,...

Toshiba develops new fiber-optic devices for automotive LAN.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 20 Kyodo Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it has developed new fiber-optic receiver and transmitter devices for an automotive local area network (LAN). The new devices can operate at temperatures ranging from minus 40 C to 85...

48.8% of households have Net-capable devices.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 20 Kyodo The percentage of households with Internet-capable electronics equipment to all households averaged 48.8% in 2002, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications said Thursday. The...

Citizen Watch, Super Wave jointly develop 'security watch'.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 21 Kyodo Citizen Watch Co. and Super Wave Co. have jointly developed a test model of a ''security watch'' that helps protect data stored on users' personal computers or other information devices, officials of the two firms...

IBM Japan net profit down for 3rd straight year.(Brief Article)
February 24, 2003... TOKYO, Feb. 24 Kyodo IBM Japan Ltd. said Monday its group net profit for the year to Dec. 31 fell 10.4% from the previous year to 95 billion yen, down for the third consecutive year. Group sales declined 7.3% to 1,583.4 billion yen...