[News] intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan | ANN.lu |
Posted on 20-Sep-2000 07:52 GMT by Teemu I. Yliselä | 5 comments View flat View list |
Tao, in conjunction with Fujitsu, is opening a support centre for corporate users of the intent platform in Japan. Could this help pave way for Ami in the Japanese market? Press release is below.
September 19, 2000 - Berkshire-based Tao Group Limited and Fujitsu Aichi Engineering Limited (Fujitsu AEL) have agreed to open an intent Official Support Centre in Japan, to provide technical support services for Japanese corporate users of Tao's intent, an extremely high performance multimedia Java(TM) execution environment.
The Java(TM) language is becoming increasingly popular in the Japanese consumer market, particularly in PDAs, set-top boxes and mobile Internet devices, and Tao's intent is making inroads due to its minimal memory footprint. intent is also proving successful because of its system-level binary portability across software and hardware platforms - a fundamental factor in the embedded market where there are so many different CPUs and operating systems.
Due to its own high-performance virtual machine, intent can provide a unified software base to its users. As the intent user base expands, Tao anticipates a need for a comprehensive support centre for Japanese
corporate users intending to use Java(TM) in their embedded products.
Fujitsu AEL has created the intent Official Support Centre, in
conjunction with Tao, to meet this anticipated demand.
In addition to opening the support centre, Fujitsu AEL is planning to port intent on to the iTRON operating system - which has a large share in the Japanese embedded market - in order to further accelerate take-up of intent. Fujitsu AEL is currently working with Victor Company of Japan (JVC), which also has a long-standing relationship with Tao, and expects to complete porting towards the end of this year.
Mr.Junji Maeyama, Managing Director in charge of Software Business,
Fujitsu Limited, comments: "As the Internet becomes more and more
popular, the proliferation of embedded operating systems for information appliances is more and more important. Recognizing this, Fujitsu welcomes the partnering of Tao Group and Fujitsu AEL in the support centre activities for intent."
Francis Charig, Chairman of Tao Group, adds: "We are very pleased at Tao that our official intent support centre will shortly be opened by
Fujitsu AEL. The Japanese market is central to Tao's entire business
strategy, and we have seen partnership with the appropriate body as
being crucial to achieving our goals. We are therefore particularly
pleased that AEL has taken on this responsibility, given its experience
and professionalism."
The intent Official Support Centre will be marketed through ASCII
Corporation, Tao's distributor in Japan, alongside Fujitsu AEL. Fujitsu
AEL expects to gain 100 corporate users within two years.
- Ends -
About Tao Group
Tao Group is an intellectual property generator and software company
specialising in technologies for the professional and consumer
electronics markets. Incorporated in 1992, the Company is the provider
of leading edge technologies in the fields of compact, fast and portable operating environments, graphical toolkits and engines for running Java(TM), as well as offering the fastest and securest public key encryption technologies available.
The company's philosophy is based on providing powerful frameworks for use right across the range of consumer and professional electronics
products from smart cards to network computers into which Tao's clients
can build in their own branding and incorporate their own added value.
Tao's clients include blue chip companies such as Motorola (which is
also a Shareholder in Tao), Victor Company of Japan and LSI Logic.
Headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom, Tao employs 60 people.
intent(RTM) and the Tao Logo are Registered Trademarks of Tao Group
Limited.
Java(TM), and all Java(TM)-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. or other
countries.
For more information please contact:
Chris Bignell / Chris Gent
Companycare Communications
Tel. +44 (0)118 939 5900
Fax. +44 (0)118 959 9595
Email: chris@companycare.com | chrisg@companycare.com
Graham Nice
Tao Group
Tel: +44 (0)118 901 2999
Fax: +44 (0)118 901 2963
Email: Nice@tao-group.com
Website: http://www.tao-group.com/
|
|
intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan : Comment 1 of 5 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 19-Sep-2000 22:00 GMT | I'll start off by warning that this is an actual rant on my part (as in, nothing but a chunk of opinion)...
Fujitsu's storage divison gained a bit of Slashdot infamy recently by announcing a coalition with other MO manufacturers to create a sort of hardware ID/copy-protection scheme for MO media. The reasoning goes that it makes MO a more attractive medium for the storage of "internet content," etc.
Frankly, that pissed me off, since I was planning to pay the premium for MO as a backup medium (it's a bit pricey and slow for storing 'internet content' anyhow), but I don't want to encourage companies to take that sort of father-knows-best stance on copyright issues. [The tech sounds like it's just an embedded serial number, but the fact is that they're representing it as another annoying tool for enforcing copy-protection...]
Amiga is lined up to be powering next-generation entertainment systems. The thing is, Amiga (as a company) has been sitting the fence between commercial and open-source worlds. They have good reasons for not going Open-Source themselves, but they're happy to market to that audience. The problem, as I see it, is that some of the partnerships that will make Tao/Amiga players in the "digital content universe" will put them under pressure to embed intellectual property protection schemes into the base system. I'm all for the idea of legally paid-for content, but we're all familiar with the unintended hassles that copy-protection can cause.
Microsoft has been working on integrating such a protection system into their OS products, whether as a good-faith effort towards the media consortiums, or under actual legal pressure. With luck, it'll go the way of Microsoft Wallet, but there's always a chance it'll become the Accepted Way of Doing Things; you need only look at the QNX RTP's default config to see how prevalent the Start Menu concept has become...
Anyhow, like I said, just a rant. I'm feeling pretty down about how screwed up the intellectual property scene has become, and I suppose this shows it... Just remember to keep your eyes open when it comes to such things. (I'm still laughing at the folks who shouted "Boycott DIVX!" only to discover the CSS and region coding issues with DVDs...)
-Floid |
|
intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan : Comment 2 of 5 | ANN.lu |
Posted by XDelusion on 19-Sep-2000 22:00 GMT | I went to see the latest Godzilla movie the other day, and I was pretty upset, aside from the movie add having the cheesey Americanized slogan: Get ready to Grumble (please god don't let Amiga's adds become cheesey, in the played out style that America always brings us!!!), there was also a ton of sceens where the japs were running Windows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ACK!!!!!!
Now first off I would have thought that the japs, as kool as they are, would have written there own standard OS by now, and would have been using that as apposed to Windows, which they must also realize, is not a very dependable OS. But since this is not the case, I certainly hope that Tao will be the company to push some sort of alternative into the Main stream, and though I have not touched or used the Tao OS, I am willing to bet it like all the others (with the exception of the C64 OS) will run circles around Winblows.
Anyhow, this is good to see, they are strecthing wide, and I hope they are bringing Amiga along for the ride. Who knows, maybe some day big brother will be powered by Amiga too!! |
|
intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan : Comment 3 of 5 | ANN.lu |
Posted by gary_c on 20-Sep-2000 22:00 GMT | In reply to Comment 2 (XDelusion): First of all, didn't anybody ever tell you that "Japs" is a derogatory term?
Second, the Japanese haven't prevailed against Windows for the same reasons that nobody in America or Europe or anywhere else has. The situation is worsened by the fact that people here aren't normally thought of as being highly individualistic, so the Windows herd mentality finds smooth sailing.
It's highly unlikely that "Tao OS" will make any dent in the Windows monolith here. It may get some wins in embedded devices, which is why Tao set up its Japan office (following in QNX Software Systems' footsteps, BTW), but if Ami/Tao expect to be anything more than a blip on the radar screen, they'll have to come up a pretty spectacular desktop OS, and a marketing scheme to match. |
|
intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan : Comment 4 of 5 | ANN.lu |
Posted by XDelusion on 20-Sep-2000 22:00 GMT | Hmm also if you will look at there page, you will see where he is discussing the new Amiga SDK, he says it is a bit premature, but he praises Amiga and Tao for there wonderful tech support, and I would agree with him, if it is as friendly, and informative as he is saying, then yes, I do not see why Amiga would fail either, I mean who wants to work with something if your docs don't help all, and you can't get no help? Also I know doing tech support is a pain in the butt, so I can feel for them, but then again, at least they don't get the same old dumb questions like," why doesn't the internet work, did you guys turn it off"!?!?!
:O) |
|
intent Official Support Centre to open in Japan : Comment 5 of 5 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Hidehiko Ogata on 24-Sep-2000 22:00 GMT | In reply to Comment 3 (gary_c): Thanks for your kind comment and spot-on observation ;).
Another historical tidbit: most Japanese OS may have been derivative, but there
was an interesting proposed OS called TRON (not to be confused with a Disney
movie with the same title.)
In fact, there was a movement, in the mid-80's IIRC, to mass-popularize TRON
throughout Japanese universities. The plan was branded as yet another unfair
trade barrier, however, and was quickly stamped upon. It is reported that
certain software giant was behind the strong rallying against the project.
Some people never change.
Anyways, TRON survived the hardship, and has eventually found a niche in
the Japanese embedded market (as mentioned briefly in the original article.)
It would be a shame if two of my favorite underdogs have to compete head-on... |
|
Anonymous, there are 5 items in your selection |
|
- User Menu
-
- About ANN archives
- The ANN archives is powered by #AmigaZeux. It was updated daily (news last: 22-Oct-2004; comments last: 18-May-2005).
ANN.lu was created, previously owned and maintained by Christian Kemp, www.ckemp.com.
- Contribute
- Not possible at this time!
- Search ANN archives
- Advanced search
- Hosting
- ANN.lu was hosted by Dreamhost. Sign up through this link, mention "ckemp" as referrer and he will get a 10% commission on any account you purchase.
Please show your appreciation for any past, present and future work on ANN.lu by making a contribution via PayPal.
|