AST Joins IBM Group to Sell PCs in Japan : * Marketing: The Irvine company also sets up a division aimed at peddling computers to the U.S. government.
AST Research Inc., a maker of personal computers, said Thursday that it has formally joined a consortium led by International Business Machines Corp. to sell computers in Japan and that it has also formed a new division to concentrate on selling computers to the federal government.
AST will join IBM and a group of international computer companies that support IBM’s new Japanese-language operating system--the software that enables a computer to run different application programs, such as spreadsheets. The system would be compatible with a variety of personal computer brands and software.
The Open Architecture Development Group, formed by IBM earlier this year, represents an attempt to break the stronghold of Tokyo-based NEC Corp., which commands more than half of the Japanese PC market with its own unique standard.
The spread of PC use in Japan has been limited because software developers must release different versions of their applications for each of the distinct operating systems, such as NEC’s.
“The company feels it is important to promote a competing standard in Japan to assist in opening the market to U.S. and other PC manufacturers,” said Thomas Yuen, chief operating officer of AST.
By joining with IBM, AST is amending its original strategy for selling computers in Japan. Yuen said in an interview with The Times last month that the new strategy could allow AST to join a concerted, industrywide effort to establish a presence in Japan, rather than continue to try to break into the market alone.
A year ago, AST was one of the few U.S. companies trying to compete with the Japanese on their own turf by unveiling a machine that was compatible both with the NEC operating system and the English-language, IBM-compatible operating system called MS-DOS.
The machine has not added significantly to sales, but the company says it is not a failure--its goals are long-term--and the device will continue to be sold.
Yuen said the company would release a new machine based on the IBM group’s standard by the end of the year. Other members of the consortium include Canon Inc., Intel Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Memorex Telex, Olivetti Co., Sharp Electronics Corp., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.
This week’s formation of the AST division to handle government contracts comes a month after the company received a subcontract last month from Digital Equipment Corp. under which AST will sell up to $100 million worth of its PCs to the U.S. Navy over three years.
Now AST is seeking a chunk of a new computer contract, called Desktop IV, that the Air Force and Navy put out for bid on Monday. The winner or winners of the contract, which could be announced in the next few months, could potentially supply thousands of computers to the government over a period of years.
The unit will pursue the federal computer market, estimated at $1.7 billion. The federal-systems unit will be based at AST’s Irvine headquarters, with sales representatives near Washington at the company’s sales office in Rosslyn, Va.
