A huge software development centre will be created by government and private firms with a total capitalization of S7.5 million. The major aim this centre is to meet the demand of software and hardware engineers. According to the government survey, there will be a massive shortage of software engineers by the year 2,000, nearly 970,000 engineers.

The actual location of the centre will be 150 kilometers from Tokyo. This massive project starling this September will include convention halls, research laboratories and hotels.

The development centre will be backed up by about 30 firms and organizations, and will start operation in 1994. Hundreds of private computer related firms have already expressed interest in participating in this project. A total of 450 firms which will participate include NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba, IBM Japan, and Lotus.

The growing demand for facsimiles suitable for homes and small offices has led to an upsurge in production of low-end j machines.

New manufacturers arc ‘ emerging all the time in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The intensifying competition has resulted in price cuts in Taiwan of $ 20 to $30 per unit on low-end models.

Most personal and home user-oriented models now available from Taiwan are priced at.?, between $230 and $260 apiece FOB, and many company executives there think export quotes for personal models may drop to $200 or lower by early 1993.

The volume of facsimiles made in Japan rose 4.8 percent to 2.2 million units in the first six months of 1991.

However, the value of Japans facsimile exports was down by 2.8 percent, indicating thni average prices are still falling.

Japan’s major suppliers are expected to increase their off- production of shore production of G3. They are developing new G4 models with advanced features.

Among the big Japanese corporations competing in the facsimile market are Canon, Hitachi, Konica, NEC, Ricoh, Sharp and Toshiba.

Fast transmission speeds of up to three seconds per A4 sheet are offered by the top-line machines. Some makers are developing more compact machines, others are incorporating large LCD panels and there is increasing production of fax/answering   machine   and   other combination units.

The United States and Europe are still key markets for the Japanese, although makers said shipments to Asian countries are on the rise.

Taiwan makers hope they will be able to obtain contact image sensors and thermal printer heads locally by 1993.

“The industry’s international marketing momentum will be strengthened   notably   when these vital components can be I obtained from local sources,” said one leading maker.

Most of Taiwan’s makers are concentrating   their   product development on low-end personal-use facsimiles. But models using plain paper to print incoming documents are on the drawing board at a subsidiary of Tatung, Taiwan’s biggest electronics corporation.

Leading makers like Kinglet are adding more user-friendly features to their models. Automatic telephone/facsimile switches are becoming a standard feature now.

Several of Korea’s smaller manufacturers have been dropped out of the lines squeezed by the fall in world facsimile prices and skyrocketing labor costs at home.

But the outlook for big Korean fax machine manufacturers like Daewoo, GoldStar and Hyundai is good.

These firms are serving the home fax machine market, devoting a substantial amount of R & D to new features for the next generation of models.

Hong Kong-based manufacturers including S. Megga. Termbray and Elec & Eltek are producing low-end models for buyers in east Europe and other developing countries.

—Asian Sources