CAD flies to Asia

Thursday, August 24, 2000

Recent debates in Washington on whether to normalize trade relations with China reveal the United States' angst over doing business in the world's biggest market. Aside from political considerations, challenges to any company trying to do trade in Asia include the hurdles of adjusting to the many languages across the region, and coping with widespread piracy of software and entertainment products.

And a December, 1999 pledge by the Chinese government to institute CAD/CAM in 90% of state-owned businesses by 2010 has U.S. software developers licking their chops.

Now one company is finally testing the waters of the Asian market. WebScope Inc. (www.webscopeinc.com) announced Monday that it had developed a strategic partnership with the Japanese engineering software company Cybernet Systems Co. (www.cybernet.co.jp), with the goal of selling WebScope's collaboration software to Japanese manufacturing firms.

Cybernet's goal was to complement its own solutions, to create and market a "localized" enterprise collaboration product. "We were especially impressed by WebScope's ability to maintain exceptional security during a product review session," says Shigehisa Inoue, Cybnernet's managing director.

Together, the companies will enable manufacturing firms to use the Internet to integrate their supply chains, allowing workers to collaborate in real-time, regardless of their geographical locations, explains WebScope CEO Raja Jasti.