Compaq is to establish a Japanese subsidiary during July and enter the Japanese market with a flexible strategic plan to sell both portable and notebook computers, and also develop Japan-specific products, reports the Japanese edition of Computerworld. An ex-IBM Japan executive is expected to be appointed the President of the new company. With the recent release of DOS/V, any Japanese software running under DOS/V can be supported on an English machine, thus abolishing the pain of Japanisation – the necessity of providing Kanji support and so on. By licensing DOS/V through Microsoft, Compaq is expected to use it as a strategic sales weapon in Japan. Citizen has been making Compaq machines in Japan at a monthly production rate of 20,000 machines. Catena, Compaq’s distributor in Japan says it welcomes the new subsidiary because of support for Compaq products.
