Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Wide Research Institute Company, Ltd. announced today that the two companies have entered into a 50/50 joint venture, InternetNode Inc., a provider of next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) hardware and software. The newly formed company was launched to provide solutions that address the internetworking and software development challenges posed by IP version 6 (IPv6), successor to current standard IPv4 that is projected to expand Internet connectivity exponentially.

IPv4, based on a 32-bit address space and capable of 4.3 billion IP addresses, is rapidly reaching the limits of its capacity due to the explosive growth of global Internet usage. The 128-bit IPv6 is seen as a significant upgrade over its predecessor because its number of IP addresses capacity is essentially unlimited. Standardization work in communications technologies and networking systems is currently in progress worldwide, and is expected to provide Internet connectivity to everything from PCs and wireless terminals to digital consumer products, automotive and other IPv6-compatible electronic systems.

Japan leads the world in standardizing IPv6, with both industry and academic institutions actively moving to develop technologies as well as hardware and software applications. A number of companies are already offering commercial services based on the new protocol, and new IPv6-related ventures are projected to undergo a dramatic increase over time.

Tokyo-based InternetNode Inc. is expected to introduce a product lineup of IPv6-enabled hardware and software applications, drawing upon the rich expertise of both Wide Research's advanced Internet technologies and Yokogawa's product engineering, manufacturing and systems solutions strengths. InternetNode's management team is led by Dr. Jun Murai, who serves as Chairman, and Tetsuo Hoshi as President. Dr. Murai, currently Professor of Environmental Information at Keio University, is Japan's leading authority on Internet technologies. Prior to his appointment at InternetNode, Mr. Hoshi served as General Manager of Yokogawa's IT Business Division.

Dr. Murai founded Wide Research Institute Co. Ltd., based in Tokyo, in 2000 as a business outgrowth of his involvement and stewardship of the WIDE Project, a pioneering academia-industry cooperative for Internet technologies launched in Japan in 1988. The Project, which Yokogawa joined in 1992, has since emerged as a premier IPv6 research platform, recognized for its manifold successes in advanced internetworking and reference code work and conformance test system development. Wide Research is the incubator specializing in software and application development for Internet technologies.