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Access (company)

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For the U.S. company, see Access Industries.
ACCESS CO., LTD.
Company typePublic
TYO: 4813
IndustryMobile software
Smart TV software
Automotive software
Digital Publishing
Next Generation Networks
FounderToru Arakawa and Tomihisa Kamada
Headquarters
Tokyo
,
Japan
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Nobuya Murofushi (CEO)
Koichi Narasaki (COO)
Kunihiro Ishiguro (CTO)
ProductsNetFront
Number of employees
615
SubsidiariesACCESS (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
ACCESS Seoul Co., Ltd.
ACCESS CO., LTD. Taiwan Office
ACCESS Europe GmbH
IP Infusion Inc.
PT ACCESS ASIA PACIFIC INDONESIA
Websiteaccess-company.com

ACCESS CO., LTD. (株式会社ACCESS, Kabushiki-gaisha Akusesu), founded in April 1979 and incorporated in February 1984 in Tokyo, Japan, by Arakawa Toru and Kamada Tomihisa,[1] is a company providing a variety of software for connected and mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, video game consoles and set top boxes.

The company has gained wide recognition for its NetFront software series,[2] which has been deployed in over 1 billion devices, representing over 2,000 models, as of the end of January 2011,[3] and which has been used as a principal element of the widely successful i-mode data service of NTT DoCoMo in Japan. NetFront is also used by a large number of consumer electronic devices beyond mobile phones, such as the Sony PSP and the Amazon Kindle, both of which have their web browsers powered by NetFront. In addition, the NetFront Browser and related products are used on a wide variety of mobile phones, including those from Nokia, Samsung, LG Corp., Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and others.[3]

In September 2005, ACCESS acquired PalmSource,[4][5] the owner of the Palm OS and BeOS. The company has used these assets and expertise to create the Access Linux Platform, an open-source Linux-based platform[6] for smartphones and other mobile devices, with some proprietary parts including the user interface and some middleware.[6] The Access Linux Platform 3.0 was released to the market in October 2008.[7] Two of the world's largest operators, NTT DoCoMo[8] and Orange,[9] have announced support for Access Linux Platform-based handsets.

In March 2006, ACCESS acquired IP Infusion, Inc., a provider of intelligent networking software, providing Layer 2 and Layer 3 carrier-class switching and routing as well as a comprehensive forwarding plane implementation supporting L2, L3 (IPv4 & v6), multicast and MPLS/Traffic Engineering.[10]

ACCESS is active in open source-related efforts, including memberships in the Linux Foundation and the Linux Phone Standards Forum. In 2007, ACCESS employees presented at GUADEC (which the company also sponsored)[11] and the Ottawa Linux Symposium.[12]

As of January 2013, ACCESS employs approximately 615 people globally,[1] with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and facilities in the USA (Sunnyvale), Germany (Oberhausen), Korea (Seoul), the PRC (Beijing), Taiwan (Taipei) and Indonesia (Jakarta) .[13]

The company reports consolidated revenues of ¥11.7 billion (for the fiscal year ending January 2013).[1]

History

ACCESS was founded in April 1979 by Toru Arakawa and Tomihisa Kamada and has since grown into a global company with approximately 1,000 employees. ACCESS is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and has opened offices in the U.S., Germany, China, Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia. Incorporated in 1984, ACCESS stock is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mother’s Index under the number 4813.

Historical timeline

Apr 1979 ACCESS founded by Toru Arakawa and ACCESS Announces NetFront™ Browser
Sep 1986 Original TCP/IP developed, commercialized as AVE™-TCP
Feb 1996 NetFront introduced – software for Internet browsing, installed in internet TVs and word processors
Feb 1998 Compact NetFront™ introduced – the industry’s first compact HTML browser for mobile phones
Feb 2001 ACCESS CO., LTD. listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers Index (ticker code 4813)
Oct 2003 NetFront Browser surpasses 100 million deployments
Feb 2004 NetFront™ Mobile Client Suite introduced
Nov 2005 ACCESS acquires PalmSource, Inc.
Apr 2006 ACCESS acquires IP Infusion Inc.
Jun 2006 ACCESS Announces NetFront™ Living Connect
Dec 2006 ACCESS, OKI and OKI ACCESS Technologies jointly develop NetFront™ IMS Client Package and NetFront Media Player Set - industry's first commercial IMS solution
Feb 2008 NetFront deployments surpass 500 million worldwide
May 2008 ACCESS Unveils NetFront™ IP Connect Home Gateway Middleware
Jul 2008 ACCESS Launches Mobile Widget Community Site
Oct 2008 ACCESS™ PIM Solution selected by China Telecom for mobile network construction
Dec 2008 NetFront Browser Widget service provided to NTT DoCoMo smartphones
May 2009 comScore Mobile Confirms ACCESS’NetFront™ Browser as Most Widely Available Handset Browser in Europe and U.S.
Jan 2010 ACCESS Announces NetFront™ Browser v4.0
Feb 2010 ACCESS Becomes Member of HbbTV Consortium
Feb 2010 ACCESS Announces NetFront™ for Android™
Nov 2010 ACCESS Announces the Release of NetFront™ Life An Application Series for End Users
Feb 2011 NetFront™ Software Series Deployments Surpass One Billion Worldwide
Feb 2011 ACCESS Opens New Digital Publishing Opportunities for Content Providers
Mar 2011 NetFront™ Browser is provided for Nintendo 3DS™
Jun 2011 ACCESS Announces NetFront™ Browser NX
Oct 2011 ACCESS Announces NetFront™ BookReader
Dec 2012 NetFront™ Browser NX is provided for Wii U™ Game Console

Memberships

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c ACCESS Company Profile, ACCESS. Archived 2012-07-22 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Eugenia Loli-Queru. Introduction to Phone Web Browsers in OSnews, January 26, 2006. Archived 2013-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b Kamada, Tomihasa
  4. ^ Ryan Kairer, PalmSource Acquired By ACCESS, PalmInfocenter, September 8, 2005 Archived 2014-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ ACCESS Completes Acquisition of PalmSource ACCESS press release, November 14, 2005. Archived 2012-06-20 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b "ACCESS & Open Source FAQs". Archived from the original on March 7, 2012.
  7. ^ Brad Linder. ACCESS Linux Platform 3.0 released: Yes it's another mobile phone OS, DownloadSquad, October 24, 2008. Archived 2009-08-21 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Japan’s DoCoMo Developing Mobile Linux Operator Pack in MobileLinuxInfo, April 21, 2008 Archived 2011-01-04 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Ed Hardy. Orange Releasing ALP-Powered Smartphone this Summer on Brighthand.com, February 13, 2008. Archived 2014-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ ACCESS to Acquire IP Infusion Inc. in Wireless Watch Japan, March 3, 2006. Archived 2012-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Sponsors | Gran Canaria Desktop Summit Website Archived 2014-03-25 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Talks | Ottawa Linux Symposium Presentation Listings for 2007 Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ ACCESS: Global Offices Archived 2012-07-14 at the Wayback Machine
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