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Nikkei Computer

March 21, 2005 Issue <<Contents>>

FEATURE Information Systems Need to Be Reformed A growing wave of laws and regulations - As we have learned from the turmoil engulfing Seibu Railway and Kokudo, we have entered the era when just a single scandal can push a major company to the brink of extinction. In the United States, the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act was enacted in response to the fraudulent and illegal accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom. And the law will affect Japanese companies sooner or later. From now on, IT divisions will be forced to assume the heavy responsibility of complying with the law and preventing scandals. This article reports on the latest measures taken to deal with this situation. - Wacoal undertakes a major reform of its IT division in order to establish the adequate internal control required by the SOX Act - No delay is allowed in activities aimed at establishing compliance with laws and regulations, and the theory that man’s inborn nature is good does not work Examination of the Impact of the SOX Act Column: There is an urgent need to adhere to various environmental regulations such as the Kyoto Protocol, the RoHS Directive, and the PRTR Law

PEOPLE

Interview
- We are determined to compete with SAP and Oracle in the global marketplace, and we intend to make inroads into the SCM market within three years
Masayuki Makino: Representative Director & CEO, Works Applications Co., Ltd.


Real Feelings Expressed by Top Executives
- Priority should be given to being faster and cheaper rather than being perfect; perfectionism can result in budget overruns
Susumu Hasegawa: Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer (CIO), Lawson, Inc.

NEWS

Reports

- A series of accounting frauds have been discovered at the Japanese offices of foreign vendors

- More and more Linux servers are replacing large Unix/RISC servers

- The result of Nikkei Computer’s questionnaire survey of major companies in Japan shows that a reasonable fee for the provision of personal information is from ¥250 to ¥1500, if fees can be charged

- As the shortage of project managers at major IT vendors becomes more acute, it is vital to improve financial compensation for them

- More and more middle-ranking IT vendors adopt professional certification programs for IT personnel

- Japanese banks start introducing IC cards to replace the existing magnetic cards while making efforts to adopt measures against IC card forgery

- Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has issued a warning against the Japanese unit of Intel over allegations that the chipmaker tried to force Japanese companies to give up using chips produced by other companies, a violation of the Antimonopoly Act

- Lion relocates its system center as part of measures against earthquakes and other natural disasters

- At Ricoh, 670 in-house auditors inspect each division of the company

- Dell Computer of the United States moves into service businesses

News Flash for Each Industry

- [Finance] Bank of America has lost information on about 1.2 million customers

- [Service] Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) uses IC tags to supervise misplacement of tools at a nuclear power plant

- [Distribution] am/pm Japan conducts surveys over the Internet to find the potential needs of customers

- [Manufacturing] Sankyo and Daiichi Pharmaceutical consolidate their databases of candidate substances for new drugs in preparation of their business merger

- [e-Japan] Using the intelligent transportation system (ITS), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to provide traffic information on all routes throughout the country

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Close Up
Multifunction copiers are attracting a lot of attention due to the full enactment of the Personal Information Protection Law in April

Close Up
Technologies for preventing information leaks from notebook computers have advanced

Close Up
Video conference systems come under the spotlight thanks to their lower cost and greater multifunctionality

The A to Z of IT Pitfalls
Software Test

New Products
A web mail server software that has functions for preventing information leaks from servers, etc.

CASE STUDIES

The Project
Sojitz Corporation
- The merger between Nissho Iwai Corporation and Nichimen Corporation, which created Sojitz, has been successfully completed, despite the fact that the two companies had been renovating their own systems at the time of the announcement of the merger

A Computer That Does Not Work
The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM)
- The exchange’s electronic futures trading system shut down for two straight days

Close Up
Close Studies of Strong IT Divisions
Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
- The company carries out a project for “visualizing” or quantifying the processes of IT investment, from the initial investment to operation

IT MANAGEMENT

Shiro Baba’s “Essays in Idleness” for SEs
- It is important to reconfirm the significance of dropping by the offices of your customers

Conditions for Becoming a Successful SE
- Conduct yourself so that you can win the hearts and minds of others

For Project Managers: 25 Technology Theories for Establishing an Information System
- It is important for corporations and the IT industry to join forces to promote the succession of know-how from one generation to the next