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NikkeiBP News Volume 51
Sony Tops "Brand Japan 2001" Ranking


-- April 11, 2001 -- On April 9, NikkeiBP unveiled the results of Japan's largest brand survey, "Brand Japan 2001," in an Archive session held at Akasaka Prince Hotel. After conducting a preliminary survey and screening of influential brands, the Brand Japan Committee sent out a questionnaire to 10,000 randomly selected businesspeople and consumers in February. Valid responses were collected from 6,959 who gave their evaluation of the selected 1,200 corporate brands and product brands.

A total of 503 people attended the Archive session, most of who were managers engaged in branding at their respective companies. The survey findings showed that Sony achieved the highest overall score at 348 points out of a possible 500, overwhelmingly surpassing the second-ranking Seven-Eleven Japan. The remaining top five brands in the order of ranking were: Windows, Mujirushi Ryohin, Starbucks Coffee and McDonalds.

David A. Aaker, renowned as the global authority of brand strategy, made a keynote speech in a commemorative seminar entitled "Brand Building & the Internet." Aaker is Professor Emeritus of marketing strategy at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. More information on Brand Japan 2001 is available as a Japanese-language news release at http://res.nikkeibp.co.jp/r-marketing/hnr008.html An extensive report of the survey is available at 350,000 yen (tax exclusive; in Japanese only).

NikkeiBP Presents Eleventh "NikkeiBP Technology Awards"


NikkeiBP has announced technologies that won the eleventh NikkeiBP Technology Awards. Established in 1991, the aim is to contribute to Japan's technological development by giving recognition to outstanding technologies that would bring a great deal of impact on the industry and society. This year, Dr. Yutaka Ono, Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University, chaired the screening committee of twenty members representing the most notable academic and research organizations in Japan.

Among the new technologies developed during 2000, this year's Grand Prize went to the technology of producing high yielding hybrid seed, developed by a team of six headed by Kokichi Hinata, director of Research Institute of Seed Production and Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University. This promising technology, based on genetic modification, may be applied to crops after further research. In addition to the Grand Prize, fifteen Section Prizes were presented in the seven sections of electronics, info-communications, personal computing, mechanical systems, construction, medicine/biotechnology and ecology. More details on the awards are available at: http://www.nikkeibp.co.jp/info/newsrelease/newsrelease20010321.html (Japanese only)

NIKKEI ELECTRONICS Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary


With its April 9 issue, NIKKEI ELECTRONICS celebrated its 30th anniversary. In commemoration, the issue carries a cover story featuring exclusive interviews with Nobuyuki Idei, Chairman & CEO of Sony; Linus Torvalds, developer of Linux and currently a software engineer at Transmeta; Masato Hirose, leader of ASIMO humanoid robot development team at Honda R&D; Bill Gates, Chief Software Architect of Microsoft; Ken Kutaragi, father of PlayStation/PlayStation2 and President of Sony Computer Entertainment; and Shuji Nakamura, inventor of blue LED/violet laser and currently Professor of University of California in Santa Barbara.

These six people were chosen as a result of a questionnaire survey conducted among NIKKEI ELECTRONICS subscribers asking who will lead the next age. Although they are people who made great achievements in their career, it is interesting that none talked about their past success. They all discussed their new interests towards the future. Read the full text of these interviews in English at http://ne.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/

WORLD PC EXPO 2001 Announced in China


On March 12 and 14, NikkeiBP held sessions in Beijing and Shanghai to announce WORLD PC EXPO 2001, inviting the top and middle executives of Chinese IT companies, government officials and the press. In Beijing, 131 people from 117 companies attended the event held at China World Hotel, while 197 people from 158 companies attended the event in Shanghai at Garden Hotel Shanghai. Gaining coverage by key media companies including magazine publishers and TV stations, both sessions successfully increased the awareness of the annual WORLD PC EXPO show in the Chinese market.

This year's WORLD PC EXPO, to be held from September 19 to 22 at Nippon Convention Center (Makuhari Messe), will accompany "Internet WORLD PC EXPO" as its official Web site. A notable function of this Web site is the matchmaking between information needs of the expected 120,000 advance registration visitors and information seeds of the exhibitors and the organizer.

For information on WORLD PC EXPO 2001 in English, visit http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/wpc/e/

NikkeiBP's 2001-2002 Corporate Brochure Comes Off Presses


The 2001-2002 version of NikkeiBP's corporate brochure is available in English. With abundant visual presentations, this 16- page brochure introduces NikkeiBP's extensive product lineup as well as the latest movements in the company. Also to come off presses soon are the Chinese and the Korean versions, both of which are 8 pages long. The Japanese edition of the brochure will be available in late May.

NIKKEI BUSINESS, NikkeiBP's flagship general business magazine, also released its 16-page media data in English that contains facts and figures on circulation and readership of the magazine. An abridged version in Korean is also available. Please write to webmaster@nikkeibp.com to request for copies.

NikkeiBP News, covering the latest moves at Nikkei Business Publications, is also distributed as a biweekly e-mail newsletter. If you wish to receive it on a regular basis, please write to nbpnews@nikkeibp.co.jp.



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