January 1, 2005 New Year's Message

The trend towards the globalization of the Web is synonymous with the promotion of standardization, and therefore at Mitsue-Links we plan to further deepen our involvement with the W3C and to participate in the development of standardization. Moreover, we will deliver the Japanese market with more effective and more efficient methods for realizing the web standards and web accessibility packaging methods Mitsue-Links is committed to upholding.

Secondly, we intend to focus on the usage of metadata to increase awareness of XML standard technology. We will concentrate our efforts on improving all-round web technology, whilst at the same time collaborating with specialists from Japan and the rest of the world in research into ideas for content linkages and ways to realize these ideas, so as to establish the foundation for next-generation services.

We are looking to redefine the term "user experience." There has already been some outstanding research conducted into this concept overseas. The aim of this research is to get us beyond the current situation where web products tend to be evaluated at face value and to instill in client companies a visual understanding of how the underlying information structure and site strategy fit together. In this way, we are aiming to closely align and integrate corporate strategies and user needs.

Firstly, we will enhance our range of on-site and offshore services.

With regards to on-site services, in addition to providing just resident operations, Mitsue-Links will at the same time provide know-how relating to personal data protection and information security employing the world's leading technology, just as we plan to build environments in which our client companies can share new web marketing technology, and to deliver all-new on-site services that facilitate continual and ongoing site improvement.

In terms of our offshore services, we want to develop an all-new type of CMS (content management system) that will serve to bridge the communication gap that is created by the problem of distance so as to increase the service provided by offshore services to a level that is more or less comparable to that provided by on-site services, as we work towards providing highly cost-effective management services for our client companies.

SEO is a field that is attracting much attention right now, and our aim is to provide not just the technical components, but also the website construction techniques needed. This will mean that we will be able to provide the basic know-how and construction techniques required to allow client companies to focus purely on what will comprise their web content rather than consciously concerning themselves with SEO measures.

Following on from this, we understand that website growth and changes in user needs are the result of changes in user "groups" brought about by market penetration of a website, and as such we intend to provide new ways of addressing this issue. The key to resolving this issue lies in an accurate understanding of current conditions and in user segmentation. The former can be addressed through the implementation of access log analysis and Six Sigma methods, while the latter can be addressed through the combined use of several marketing techniques including the Innovator Theory. Mitsue-Links intends to deliver a very comprehensive level of service that encompasses everything from making proposals that look at the current situation and that envisage the type of content that will be needed in the future and the cross-section of users, through to the implementation of that proposal.

Today, anyone will acknowledge the potential that websites hold as a tool for promoting business innovation in enterprises. The success or failure of a web strategy project hinges on effective project management. Any expert will tell you that the extensive and internationally unrivalled process management know-how that Mitsue-Links possesses (in ISO, ISMS, CMMI, etc.), is, in essence, a means of managing projects. If we draw an analogy with the human body, one could say that project management is the management know-how like that used to control the circulatory system or nervous system in the body. We are moving forward with operations that involve us taking the essence of this know-how that we have built-up within our business over many years and channeling it into our client companies' web strategy projects, and this will be an new area of consulting services we are going to start providing.

With the arrival of the broadband era has come a dazzlingly expansion in the array of possibilities available for presenting content. Since the Internet was in its infancy, Mitsue-Links has taken onboard the needs of the times and built up know-how in those areas. At Mitsue-Links we have special teams dealing in rich media, video content, and audio and music media, and as technologies merge with one another, we look for new ways of expressing and presenting content. To date we have not shared this know-how with society in general, instead just providing it to our corporate clients, but as we now recognize that the technological advancement of professional engineers has reached boiling point, from now on, we are going to share our technology in these areas not just in Japan, but with other partners around the world as well, with the aim of promoting further technological advances, while we continue to deliver highly effective web-content presentation technology to our corporate clients.

While the issues we have covered above are wide-ranging, we see each of them as our mission in our capacity as an information integrator, and recognize that they all fall within the scope of our business domain. This year, we will be committed to these tasks, and all our employees together, as a team, will endeavor to achieve our goals for the sustainable development of our corporate clients' business through these initiatives.

We therefore ask once again for your support and cooperation this year.

• * The three key phrases that feature in our slogan - "Maximizing value," "Maximizing opportunities," and "Expanding reliability" - are also critical key phrases that feature heavily in The Sigma Project being promoted by UK organization BSI. When we look at business around the world, we can see that a series of factors have impacted on the environment surrounding enterprises; namely, Quality (ISO) -> Environment (ISO) -> Sustainability -> CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility); and now The Sigma Project looks set to be the next in line. We at Mitsue-Links recognize that following through on these key phrases is entirely necessary for the development of our corporate clients in the Internet business, and this year we have challenged ourselves to provide even more tailored and more effective services than we have in recent years.