New Mitsubishi Venture Streamlines Transactions With Distributors

Compiled ByDave Schafer Kinzan Inc., Carlsbad, Calif., is partnering with Mitsubishi Corp. to form Kinzan Japan, a company focused on streamlining the way Japanese manufacturers communicate and transact with their distributors. The new company will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi. Kinzan Japan will offer its content-management application, one of the components of CORE3, and will utilize Kinzan's yet-to-be-announced next-generation applications based on its Adaptive Web Services technology. CORE3 is Kinzan's distribution-chain applications that help manufacturers and direct-sales organizations sell their products more effectively through the distribution chain using the Web. Adaptive Web Services allow disparate business users across the distribution chain to configure and personalize mini-applications to perform their own business processes. According to a study by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Japanese business-to-business transactions are expected to balloon from $86 billion to $680 billion between 1998 and 2003. That is one of the main reasons Mitsubishi looked to partner with a solid technology to help further cement the company's growth for the future, the Tokyo-based company says. "This partnership is an exciting initiative for Kinzan to expand to the Japanese market where, like in the U.S., manufacturers and direct-sales companies are searching for ways to increase revenues and reduce costs by incorporating the Internet into their critical business processes," says Gari Cheever, president and CEO, Kinzan, a provider of distribution-chain applications for communicating and transacting over the Internet.