NEC 2010 Annual Report Download - page 24

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R&D FRAMEWORK
NEC pursues both technological development activities
directly related to product development that are handled
primarily by business units, and R&D activities that are in
the mid- to long-term horizon, which are handled primarily
by Central Research Laboratories.
At Central Research Laboratories, R&D activities are
carried out by two core research groups: the Service
Research Group and the IT/Network System Research
Group. The Service Research Group takes part in the
“C&C Cloud Strategy” and engages in R&D for cloud
platform technologies, ubiquitous platform technologies
and media processing technologies. The IT/Network
System Research Group focuses on technologies that
integrate IT and networks.
In addition, NEC has three organizations to continue
driving innovation for the NEC Group. The Green Innovation
Research Laboratories were newly established in April
2010 to help accelerate Smart Energy and Green business.
The C&C Innovation Research Laboratories were created
to research new forms of information processing and
communication from fundamental principles looking ahead
to the next 10 to 30 years. The Business Innovation
Center was established to promote new business
innovation using newly developed technologies.
Overseas, NEC has three research sites located in the
US, Europe and China to conduct R&D activities leveraging
the local characteristics of each region. These research
sites work closely with the research centers in Japan to
create globally competitive innovation.
Furthermore, NEC pursues market-oriented R&D, and
manages R&D with an emphasis on optimizing R&D
efficiency and accelerating commercialization of research
achievements. As part of this, NEC engages in Concurrent
R&D, in which customer interaction begins at early
stages of research allowing for the discovery of inherent
needs and enabling flexible response to any changes in
the market needs. NEC also actively utilizes Open
Innovation, in which R&D activities are accelerated by
incorporating external resources. By carrying out these
initiatives on a global basis, NEC aims to strengthen its
competitiveness in the marketplace by shortening the
time required to commercialize R&D achievements.
INTELLECTUAL ASSETS STRATEGY
The NEC Group owns approximately 74,000 patents
worldwide, including approximately 27,000 patents in
Japan (as of March 2010). NEC positions intellectual
assets as “the foundation for the NEC Group’s business
competitiveness and stability,” and is working to
strengthen its intellectual assets from both quality and
quantity standpoints. Specifically, NEC is concentrating on
establishing a global patent network, to support achieving
an overseas sales ratio of 50% as targeted in the NEC
Group Vision 2017. One key focus is the core areas set
forth in “V2012”, including “C&C Cloud Strategy” related
businesses and the Smart Energy and Green business. In
these areas, NEC is carrying out Group-wide strategic
patent projects on a global basis to obtain strong patents
and patents that are being utilized.
Furthermore, NEC believes that participating in standards
initiatives will help create and expand businesses, and will
also contribute to the stable offering of products and
services. In addition to pursuing a business model that
utilizes standardization, NEC is engaged strategically in
standardization activities by actively participating in
standardization entities both in Japan and overseas. Also,
as part of external engagements with intellectual assets,
NEC is actively pursuing licensing activities to reduce
business risks and expand business opportunities.
NEC WINS GRAND AWARD OF THE 42ND ICHIMURA INDUSTRIAL AWARDS
NEC recently won the grand award at the 42nd Ichimura Industrial Awards. The grand award is a prestigious
award that has been conferred to only 16 projects over the course of the previous 41 award presentations.
NEC received the prize in recognition of high marks for making a significant contribution to industry through the
development of power control technology for mobile transmission. In 2000, this technology was adopted as the
international standard for the third-generation mobile phone system (W-CDMA), which is currently widely used
around the world. The technology has contributed to the expansion of wireless transmission capacity, an
improvement in communications quality, and the reduction in energy use by wireless base stations for the
W-CDMA format.
23 NEC Corporation
Annual Report 2010