Redwood Shores, California-based Communication Intelligence Corp has announced a co-operative development agreement with Justsystem Corp of Tokushima, a Japanese personal computer application software company that supplies word processing software and front-end processors that convert Kana to Kanji characters. The agreement will result in a Japanese version of Communication Intelligence’s PenDOS Operating Environment and is expected to enable speeded development of pen-aware and pencentric applications for the emerging Japanese pen computer marketplace. On completion of the joint development programme, Communication Intelligence will offer its Japanese Handwriter Recognition System and Japanese PenDOS with an Application Programming Interface to third parties. Justsystem will provide Atok, the Kana Kanji front-end processor, which will interface with PenDOS. Justsystem claims to have sold more than 1m copies of Atok in Japan, and the company promises to make its current and future product line compatible with the Japanese PenDOS. Both companies plan to complete their development programmes in the first half of this year. Thereafter both companies are to extend their co-operation to include the development of other Japanese pen-based computing environments.
