TOKYO, April 10, 2001 -- Toshiba Corporation, Accenture and Oracle Corporation Japan have reached a basic agreement to establish a joint venture company by June 2001 to provide solution services ranging from an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system-based consulting service to a system integration service (system design, development and extension).

The new company will integrate Toshiba's long experience in implementing various internal and external systems, Accenture's consulting capability and project management know-how, and Oracle Japan's product technology capabilities, thereby providing the best solutions while fusing the niche capability of each company. Furthermore, the new company will employ the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i ("EBS"), consisting of software including ERP, SCM and CRM, as a technological foundation on which to build solutions.

By first expanding its sales to Japanese manufacturers of electric appliances and electronic items, then moving to include those in other industries, the new company plans to increase its revenues to over 10 billion yen by fiscal 2003

Furthermore, the new company will aim at becoming the best integrator of ERP systems, one that meets the expectations of companies shifting towards e-business in the area of mission-critical systems such as accounting, sales and production management, as well as in other areas to which the application would be extended, such as supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

The background and objectives for establishment of the new company

Companies utilizing the Internet and other information technology (IT) are making rapid progress in their structural reform efforts (transition to e-business), and at the heart of those efforts they are busily investing in computerization of those areas including ERP, SCM and CRM. As a package-based system integration market, Japan is forecast to see significant growth and become a market of more than 260 billion yen in FY2005, compared to 150 billion yen in FY2000. In this situation, system integrators able to provide high quality integration services for large-scale systems in a highly reliable manner are greatly in demand.

Based on this background, Toshiba, Accenture and Oracle have established the joint venture with the objective of responding to customers' needs in a timely manner, combining the resources and know-how of each company.

The intentions' of each company forming the joint venture are as follows:

Toshiba:

Ever since Toshiba decided to implement Oracle Applications (the predecessor of EBS) in Japan in 1995, it has been promoting company-wide use of the system, particularly in the area of production management. As well as having many internal reference models, Toshiba has trained a large number of expert engineers in this field. The establishment of this joint venture company is considered one major pillar in the expansion of Toshiba's system solutions business, which takes advantage of its long years of practical experience in ERP.

Accenture:

This joint venture was pursued with a view to expanding its Oracle EBS system business in the Japanese market and enhancing its related consulting business.

Accenture has been very active offering its Business Integration Services to customers around the world. These services include consultation on business innovation in parallel with systems integration with ERP applications. Accenture currently has 30 ERP application sites installed in Japan.

Introducing ERP applications is more complicated today and involves more globalization. Installing a system smoothly and promptly requires superior project management expertise as well as professional skills regarding business processes and information systems. Accenture will bring this knowledge and experience to the new joint venture.

Oracle Japan:

There has long been a need for Oracle Japan to improve its solution construction capabilities to match the increase in orders received in the Japanese market for E-Business Suite 11i. To that end, Oracle Japan has made several approaches to creating solution construction systems by reinforcing alliances with partner companies. Its participation in this new company is aimed at further strengthening its solution construction capability on the basis of a tie-up with Toshiba and Accenture, and Oracle Japan believes that the establishment of the joint venture company will contribute greatly to expanding the introduction of E-Business Suite 11i in the Japanese market.

Overview of the new company

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