Hitachi and NEC to Create Joint Venture

Hitachi Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) and NEC Corp. have agreed to set up a joint venture company to work on backbone routers/switches for communication networks. The company, which will be based in Tokyo, will employ around 350 people from both companies and have funding of around $51 million (¥5.5 billion). Hitachi will own 60% and NEC the remaining 40% of the joint venture.

The backbone router/switch products from the company will combine Hitachi and NEC's technologies such as IPv6 and bandwidth control. These will be supplied to Hitachi and NEC, which will market them to their own customers.