Tech stuff@Japan Trade Show

Notebooks displayed at the trade fair. PHOTO: Syed Zakir Hossain

Bangladesh is expected to receive better solutions and services through this bilateral event with Japan, which is acknowledged as one of the leaders in technology and innovative IT products.

The fair included fifty-seven stalls displaying electronic products, automobiles and automobile accessories, garments and leather accessories, industrial machinery, transport services, IT companies, chemicals, musical equipment, mineral water, stationeries, consultants, government organisations and NGOs.

Among the IT companies Bangladesh Japan Information Technology (BJIT) brought up projects like e-mail server systems, guest services management systems, remote security systems, scheduling programme, time table maintenance system, three package games for Nokia mobile system, enterprise network solutions, remote online meeting system, web sales system, web based school management system and mobile back-up software for PC. BJIT ltd. is the first Bangladesh-Japan joint venture software development company dealing with enterprise architecture and business modelling analysis and integration software solutions. It has already developed software for companies like Nokia, Motorola, Panasonic, ANK and many others in Japan, USA, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Bangladesh.

A presentation on the software industry of Bangladesh was made by BJIT on the first day of the fair. Where a segmentation of the market for ICT services in Bangladesh charted package software 6 percent, networking 6 percent, hardware 22 percent, ICT consultancy 9 percent, processing services 7 percent, maintenance 6 percent and software development 44 percent.

A survey by the JETRO also reported that the ICT market of Bangladesh earned a total of $23.09 million in the year 2004, of which $4.15 million came from software export.

TRIT, another IT company aiming to start business in Bangladesh, also participated at the fair. Their objective is to train IT professionals with technical courses such as development architecture design process, basic design of framework, database design, programming process, creation of programme specification documents, Java technology, VB/Web technology and OS skills.

The trade show also displayed some new products launched by Toshiba and Cannon. Cannon exhibited their portable photo direct printer i70, bubble jet i255, i560, i950, i865 and i6500 (A3+ printer), each with different specifications. JAN Associates Ltd., local distributor of Cannon displayed these products at their stall.

Toshiba displayed their digital e-studio 350/450 and 3511/4511 all-in-ones (copier/ printer/scanner/fax). They also showcased some of their latest notebooks with Intel Centrino technology, such as -- Satellite M30-S730, PORTEGE A100, Satellite Pro M10 and satellite A40-S430. Specifications of these products are available at IOM, local distributor of Toshiba.

The fair turned out to be a success in terms of Bangladesh-Japan collaboration and also showed the interest among the local and foreign companies.