Japan’s leading distributor of packaged software, Nippon SoftBank is to absorb Japan Datanet, a company it helped establish in 1988, which manufactures the NCC Box communications adaptors widely used by Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp and the new independents: the move is in preparation for SoftBank’s plans to get a listing on the Second Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1992; Japan Datanet was established as a separate company to isolate it from SoftBank should it fail, but now that the business is running smoothly and the danger is past, SoftBank wants to consolidate it; Japanese companies do not often offer shares publicly to raise money for the business bond issues, sometimes with warrants attached, are more common, and few software companies are public. n i pFujitsu Ltd has come out with a 32-bit laptop model in its FMR personal computer family, the FMR-50L, which uses an 11 16-colour liquid crystal display, pricing it at $5,260.
