MENU

Press Releases

Press Releases
2003.10.27

Print

ACCESS Joins Renesas Telematics Initiative as First Provider of Browser Technology

ACCESS’ NetFrontChosen by Hitachi/Mitsubishi Joint Venture for Second Phase of Community Enabling Telematics (COMET) Partnership Program

Tokyo, Japan / Fremont, CA, USA – October 27, 2003 – ACCESS (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813), a global provider of mobile content delivery and access technologies, announced today that it has joined the Community Enabling Telematics (COMET) partnership program run by Renesas Technology Corporation, a U.S. subsidiary of the new joint-venture semiconductor company established by Hitachi, Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation with the top microcontroller (MCU) market share worldwide.

The goal of the COMET partnership program is to accelerate the proliferation of telematics and car infotainment system products based on SuperH® (SH-4 series) RISC processors and chipsets. ACCESS’ NetFront® browser technology was selected for inclusion in phase II of the COMET partnership program, making it the first provider of browser software to participate in the Renesas initiative. As a program member, ACCESS has optimized NetFront for the SuperH environment enabling a superior end-user experience and top system performance.

“A year since its inception, the COMET program has been successful, producing fine-tuned, automotive-grade reference platforms that let system engineers easily evaluate different system solutions for new designs,” said Tatsuo Yamamoto, vice president of the SuperH system solution business unit at Renesas Technology America, Inc. “The COMET phase II program further expands the range of partner solutions that run on SH-based platforms. For example, planned new additions to our comprehensive one-box system development solutions for in-vehicle products include browsers, GUIs and embedded databases.”

An established leader in telematics, ACCESS technology is included in after-market solutions from Alpine and Panasonic. Acceptance in the COMET partnership program validates ACCESS’ growing prominence in the telematics space and expansion plans for the North American market.

“ACCESS is eager to work with the 20 members of the COMET partner program and to leverage our experience in Japan in order to advance the telematics market in the U.S.,” said Toru Arakawa, President and CEO of ACCESS. “We are committed to helping this consortium take a leadership position in the fast-growing telematics market. We are also eager to garner new deployments for our NetFront technology through the COMET program to achieve our vision for truly ubiquitous Internet access not limited by distance, time, location, or device.”

According to the Telematics Research Group in Minnetonka, MN, the telematics market surpassed $500 million in 2000 and is projected to top $3.5 billion in 2006, a compound annual growth rate of 36.9%. The firm also predicts that 50% of all autos will have telematics systems by 2015 and 100% by 2020.

NetFront now stands as the most widely deployed and actively used browser in the beyond-PC market, supporting more OS platforms and devices than any competing browser in the market. NetFront recently surpassed 100 million deployments in devices ranging from mobile phones and PDAs to digital televisions, gaming consoles and telematics systems. ACCESS’ technology is included in Internet solutions from many of the world’s leading mobile operators, software providers and electronics manufacturers including Adobe, Alpine, AT&T Wireless, China Mobile, China Unicom, Handspring, Hutchinson 3G Group, IBM, KDDI, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, PalmSource, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and more.

About ACCESS
ACCESS Co. Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and has subsidiaries in Fremont, California, Oberhausen, Germany, and Beijing, China. ACCESS is a global provider of mobile content delivery and access technologies for information appliances. ACCESS’ embedded NetFront browsers power 254 different commercial products worldwide including mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, game consoles, PDAs, car navigation systems, web phones, kiosk terminals and intranet terminals. To date, over 100 million ACCESS software licenses have shipped from more than 90 major Internet device manufactures (As of Sept, 2003). ACCESS was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market on February 26, 2001. More information is available at www.access.co.jp/english/ or www.access-us-inc.com.


ACCESS is a registered trademark in Japan. NetFront is registered trademark of ACCESS Co., Ltd. in Japan and in the United States. i-mode is a registered