(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
•'PC's Best Software Awards' Chosen by 1.4 Million People
October 3, 1998 (TOKYO) -- The best PC software -- as selected by readers of nine Nikkei magazines -- received awards at this week's World PC Expo 98. The 1.4 million readers of Nikkei Byte, Nikkei Personal Computer, Nikkei MAC, Nikkei Click, Nikkei WinPC, Nikkei Best PC, Nikkei NetNavi, and Nikkei Mobile selected winners in 16 software categories.
In the word processing software category, Justsystem Corp.'s Ichitaro has been the winner for the past several years, but this year handed over its crown to Microsoft Word. Microsoft products won awards in five categories.
Hisao Yoshimura, president and CEO of Nikkei Business Publications, Inc., told visitors at the World PC Expo opening ceremony that the excitement greeting the introduction of the iMac shows the PC industry is opening new fields. But no matter how advanced the performance of CPUs and multimedia technologies, the PC is worthless without useful software. "I hope software vendors will be the leaders of the coming digital age," he said.
Software vendors are in heavy competition with one another, said Makoto Naruke, president of Microsoft Co., Ltd., at the end of the ceremony. "It's only the software industry that continues to grow in the face of a sluggish Japanese economy. We are the ones to cheer up Japan's economic situation."
Awards were presented to the following software products:
- Business utilities: Eki-supahto by Val Laboratory Co., Ltd.- Home utilities: Fude mame by Creo Co., Ltd.
- System utilities: Norton Utilities (Symantec Japan, Inc.)
- Word processing software: Microsoft Word by Microsoft Co., Ltd.
- Spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel by Microsoft Co., Ltd.
- Databases: Microsoft Access by Microsoft Co., Ltd.
- Accounting software: Yayoi Kaikei by Intuit K.K.
- Development tools: Microsoft Visual Basic by Microsoft Co., Ltd.
- Web browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer by Microsoft Co., Ltd.
- Internet utilities: Becky! Internet Mail by RimArts, Inc.
- Graphics: Adobe Photoshop by Adobe Systems Co., Ltd.
- Multimedia creative software: Adobe Acrobat by Adobe Systems Co., Ltd.
- Games: AI Shogi by Ascii Something Good Corp.
- Cultural entertainment software: Toku-Uchi by Source Corp.
- Edutainment software: Go! Go! Koni-chan! by Justsystem Corp.
- Groupware: Lotus Notes/Lotus Domino by Lotus Development Japan, Ltd.
Along with the above, "Editors Choice Awards" selected by editors of nine Nikkei BP magazines and "Business Impact Awards" were announced at the ceremony.
Software packages that received the Editors Choice Award were:
- Nikkei Personal Computing: Justsystem ConceptBase Search by Justsystem Corp.- Nikkei Byte: TurboLinux: Japanese version by Pacific HiTech, Inc.
- Nikkei MAC: Macromedia Dreamweaver: Japanese version by Macromedia Corp.
- Nikkei Click: Maniromu by Oracion, Inc.
- Nikkei WinPC: ViaVoice 98: Japanese version by IBM Japan, Ltd.
- Nikkei BestPC: ProAtlas by Alps Mapping Co., Ltd.
- Nikkei PC21: FileMaker Pro by FileMaker, Inc.
- Nikkei NetNavi: Symantec Visual Page by Symantec Japan, Inc.
- Nikkei Mobile: Mobile Editor by Neotechno Co., Ltd.
Software products that received Business Impact Awards were PCA Kaikei by PCA Corp., Jizai-gan by Antenna House, Inc., and RVS-COM by Megasoft, Inc.
(Nikkei PC21)