Robert Schechter, senior vice-president of the International Business group at Lotus Development Corp in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was in Tokyo the other day for the release of the latest version of Lotus 1-2-3, a Windows version for the newly released Windows 3.1 J. Lotus was one of the first US software companies to establish its own subsidiary in Japan, in 1985. It currently has 190 employees, all of whom are Japanese, and this year shipped its one millionth copy of Lotus 1-2-3J. Japanese Lotus first shipped in 1986 and soon claimed 70% to 80% of the MS-DOS spreadsheet market. Its success was due to its functionality as a real Japanese product – for example, Lotus took out such functions as the beep option which might broadcast mistakes in operation to co-workers in the cramped Japanese office environment. Lotus has also gained considerable revenue as an OEM product in dedicated Japanese word processors such as the Toshiba Corp Rupo and the Toshiba Dynabook EZ, and the Kyocera Corp Refalo pocket computer. Lotus Development Japan has also worked with Just Systems Ltd, the developer of the biggest selling word-processing packages in Japan, Ichi-Taroo. Schechter noted several changes in the Japanese market over the past year. From being a market which was not at all price-sensitive, Japan has become the most price-sensitive market in the world. Lotus in February lowered the price of 1-2-3 to $552 from $930, and now sells a four-product set of Lotus Office for $4,630. Partly this trend is attributable to the foreign exchange rate reversal of the dollar, and also to the market turmoil caused by the advent of DOS/V machines and the US companies that are selling them, Dell Computer Corp and Compaq Computer Corp. DOS/V and Windows themselves pose problems to software vendors such as Lotus because despite Microsoft’s claim to the contrary, there are still some differences in Windows Japanese version running on different DOS/V machines; Lotus has to commit considerable resources to additional testing. However, Schechter noted the growth of personal computer shipments since February this year, with consequent good results for software vendors.
