Development of Online Database Services in Japan and Perspectives on Asia.

This paper outlines the market developments, governmental promotion policies, and efforts by private industries for online database services in Japan since the late 1970s. The combination of these efforts over the years has resulted in an online database service market of US$20 billion annually, of which approximately one third is Western online services. Growth in the conventional database service market leveled off in the early 1990s, partly because of the general economic stagnation and partly because of rapid and profound change in the environment for information usage. New opportunities have been provided by the changes in computer usage as a result of corporate downsizing trends, rapid progress in multimedia and digital technology, wide-spread information networks--especially the Internet, and a steadily emerging personal and home market. Experimental programs for digital libraries have already started. The idea of end-user searches of digital libraries through a network is exciting but threatening for everyone in the online services industry. In addition to Japan, online database producers and vendors are now emerging in newly industrializing countries and areas in Asia such as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. The market has started to grow, and within a decade the fourth largest market for online services will be in Asia, after the American, European, and Japanese markets. (Author/SWC)