In another line of business, Ashisuto KK’s attack on the high-priced personal computer software market appears to be successful in its aim of drawing attention to the disparity between prices of software such as Lotus 1-2-3 – the equivalent of $640 in Japan – and possible prices such as that of Ashisuto’s Ashisuto/Calc, based on Access Technology’s 20/20 spreadsheet, which costs just $63 and has been on the best-seller list since its release: Bill Totten has said that one of his aims in releasing a series of rock-bottom-priced products is to change the prevailing approach to software – in Japan even major companies buy one licence to a package and then co`y it relentlessly, and also to encourage the spread of personal computers in Japan, especially laptops, whose price is steadily decreasing; the hidden agenda may also be to break the hold of NEC Corp on the personal computer hardware market – the PC-9801 series has just under 50% of the market and has slipped a little as the likes of Toshiba Corp has grown on the back of laptops.
