(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Symantec Braces for Shipments of 50,000 Fax Programs
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January 7, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Symantec Corp. plans to put its "WinFAX Pro"
FAX software on the Japanese market for the first time in January 1999.
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Nikkei Personal Computing interviewed Jeff Cable, U.S. Symantec's worldwide
sales development director, on the future prospects of the FAX software
market and special features of the product.
FAX software is often attached to a personal computer itself or modems
and little change has been noted in the market. But the company aims
at selling 50,000 packages in the first fiscal year.
Nikkei Personal Computing: What is your view of the FAX software
market?
Cable: In the United States, the penetration ratio of FAX software
is fairly high, and we can't expect the market to grow much farther.
But in Japan, things are just starting out.
Even though e-mail is widespread among the people today, many of the
users still want to use FAX. Starting with Windows 98, Microsoft's FAX
software is not incorporated into its standard model, and I feel that
the need for FAX software has been mounting.
Nikkei PC: What are the selling points of WinFAX Pro?
Cable: It's easy to handle and the quality of its image generating
capability is very high. It may not be known much in Japan, but WinFAX
Pro is sold all over the world, and it has been improved continually.
Microsoft's Outlook98 has a simplified version of WinFAX attached to
it. The fact that Microsoft adopted our product indicates its high quality.
This version we are about to put on the market is five months behind
the sales in the United States. But we haven't just translated it into
Japanese, but added some functions that are peculiar to the Japanese
version.
That's because we felt that it won't be successful as a product unless
it can fill the needs that arise only in Japan.
Nikkei PC: What is your sales goal?
Cable: We aim at selling 50,000 packages in the first fiscal year.
That's about the same as the annual shipments of FAX software for storefront
sales. We are also negotiating with several makers about bundling it
on the hardware.
(Nikkei
Personal
Computing)
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