The AX Association formed to exploit the 16-bit microcmputer standard based on the IBM AT, now has 61 member companies: following Sanyo Electric Corp’s release of the first AX, Alps Electric followed suit by developing prototype machines to be sold OEM through Kyocera Corp and Mitsui Co, and the third group, which includes NEC Corp, Fujitsu Ltd and Matsushita Electric will be following soon; initial companies concentrating on software, such as Microsoft Corp, Mitsubishi Electric, Sanyo Electric, Canon Inc, Toshiba Corp, and Ascii Corp, have been followed by Tokai Create Inc, Lotus Development Corp and trading companies such as Marubeni Co, which import IBM Personalikes; unlike the US and Europe where IBM Personal family set the standard, the Japanese market is shared by NEC’s PC-9801 family, IBM’s JX series, and other MS-DOS micros that are not IBM compatible; the AX group is attempting to set a new standard for an IBM-compatible machine with Japanese language capability to compete with market leader NEC and the lower-end firms that export IBM-compatibles abroad; Ascii is making the necessary Japanese-language chips, Microsoft offers MS-DOS 3.21 as AX-MS DOS.
