And Japan is now in on the Common Open Software Environment act too – Fujitsu Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Hitachi Ltd and Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard Co are forming COSE Japan Special Interest Group, a counterpart, they say, to the existing operation in the US. The effort is apparently different from DICOP, an action previously undertaken by Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Unisoft Ltd, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, Novell Inc, Unisys Corp, Seiko Epson Co, ASCII Corp and even DEC to produce a Japanese version of the COSE desktop. The firms were briefed on COSE shortly after the COSE announcement and are said to have been encouraged to make their voices heard. COSE Japan says it will make public the specifications for Japanese-language processing functions necessary for their domestic market. Shipments of products to the standards are expected in first half 1994.
