ASCII Corporation

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ASCII Corporation
株式会社アスキー
Company typeKabushiki gaisha
IndustryComputer magazines, Video games
FoundedJune 24, 1991
DefunctApril 1, 2008
SuccessorASCII Media Works, Agetec, and Enterbrain
HeadquartersChiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Key people
Kiyoshi Takano, President

ASCII Corporation (株式会社アスキー, Kabushiki kaisha Asukī) was a publishing company based in Tokyo, Japan. It became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works.[1][2] The company published Monthly ASCII as the main publication. ASCII, The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a previously dominant character encoding for the Latin alphabet.

History

Early ASCII (1977-1990)

ASCII was co-founded by Kazuhiko Nishi and Keiichiro Tsukamoto in 1977. Originally a publisher of a magazine with the same name ASCII, talks between Bill Gates and Nishi led to a creation of Microsoft's first overseas sales office, ASCII Microsoft, in 1979.[3][4]Nishi was also known for being the creator of the MSX in 1983, an 8 bits standard computers well known in the former USSR and Japan. In 1984, ASCII engaged itself in semiconductor business, followed by a further expansion into commercial online service in 1985 under the brand of ASCII-NET. As the popularity of home video game systems soared in the 1980s, ASCII became active in the development and publishing of software for popular consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Mega Drive. After Microsoft's public stock offering in 1986, ASCII Microsoft was dissolved.[3] At around the same time, the company was also obliged to reform itself as a result of its aggressive diversification in the first half of 1980s.[5] The company went public in 1989.

ASCII in the 1990s

ASCII's revenue in its fiscal year ending March 1996 was 56 billion yen, broken down by sectors: Publication (52.5% or 27.0 billion yen), Game entertainment (27.8% or 14.3 billion yen), Systems & semiconductors (10.8% or 6 billion yen) and others.[5] Despite its struggles to remain focused on its core businesses, the company continued to suffer from accumulated debts, until an arrangement was set up that CSK Corporation execute a major investment into ASCII in 1997.[6]

ASCII had become popular in the software market that it branched out and created an American satellite in 1991 known as ASCII Entertainment. To focus on supporting the interactive entertainment channel in America, startup company Agetec (for "Ascii Game Entertainment TEChnology") was spun off as an independent corporation in 1998 and later became a fully independent publisher one year later. Co-founder Tsukamoto had left ASCII to create a company of his own in 1992, named Impress.[7]

ASCII beyond 2000

On November 26, 2001 CSK Corporation and Unison Capital Partners L.P. announced the approval of transferring the control of its subsidiary ASCII to Unison Capital Partners L.P., effective on 2002-03-30, as part of the strategy to focus the CSK's group operations on B2B businesses[8][9]. The transfer was approved on December 21, 2001.[10]. As a part of deal, ASCII's outstanding debt owed to CSK was forgiven, and under Unison's control, the ASCII's Enterbrain and IT publishing divisions would maintain autonomy, while ASCII was restructured to concentrate on PC and IT publishing businesses.

On May 28, 2002, Unison Media Partners announced ASCII would became its fully owned subsidiary of via share exchange, and ASCII would be delisted, effective on October 1, 2002.[11] On November 18, 2002, the Astroarts subsidiary was renamed to ASCII, while ASCII was renamed to MediaLeaves.[12] The former Astroarts subsidiary would inherit the publishing business of the former ASCII. On January 29, 2004, Unison Capital Partners, L.P. announced the sale of ASCII's parent company MediaLeaves to Kadokawa Group Holdings, to be completed on 2004-03.[13][14]

On September 27, 2007, Kadokawa Group Holdings announced the merger between subsidiaries MediaWorks and ASCII under the name ASCII Media Works, effective on April 1, 2008.[1][2] The merger was approved in 2008.[15] On January 10, 2010, the formerly named ASCII company MediaLeaves was merged into Enterbrain, dissolving the last of the ASCII entity.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "子会社の合併に関するお知らせ" (PDF) (in Japanese). Kadokawa Group Holdings. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-08. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b "Kadokawa Group to Merge ASCII, MediaWorks Subsidiaries". Anime News Network. 2007-10-02. Archived from the original on 7 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-30. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b Allan, Roy A. (2001). A History of the Personal Computer. Allan Publishing. pp. 31, 65. ISBN 0-9689108-0-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Quote from Bill Gates' The Road Ahead, found in Lessem, Ronnie (1998). Management development through cultural diversity. Routledge. pp. 160–161. ISBN 0-415-17875-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ a b Toda, Satoru (戸田覚) (1997). A quick map to Information and Telecommunications makrket (情報・通信業界早わかりマップ). Kō Shobō (こう書房). pp. 130–135. ISBN 4-7696-0606-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ "Ascii to join CSK group". The Japan Times. Dec. 25, 1997. Retrieved 2009-04-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Impress Holdings website
  8. ^ "CSK Corporation to Transfer ASCII to Unison Capital Partners L.P." CSK. 2001-11-26. Retrieved 2009-04-22. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ "アスキーの経営権取得に関する基本合意書締結について" (PDF). 2001-11-26. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ "CSK Corporation Formalizes Contract to Transfer ASCII to Unison Capital Partners L.P." CSK. 2001-12-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ "株式会社アスキーとの株式交換契約締結について" (PDF). Unison. 2002-05-28. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ "アスキーが社名変更". 2002-11-18. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ "株式会社メディアリーヴス株式の公開買付への応募について" (PDF). Unison. 2004-01-29. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ "Kadokawa buys ASCII (アスキー、角川が買収へ)". IT Media, Inc. (in Japanese). 2004-01-29. Archived from the original on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-22. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ "子会社の合併に関する経過のお知らせ" (PDF) (in Japanese). Kadokawa Group Holdings. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
  16. ^ "MediaLeaves, Inc. announcement" (in Japanese).

External links

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