The Mitsubishi Monitor talks with Michiaki Miyake, the president of Mitsubishi Space Software.

Mitsubishi Electric, along with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, set up your company to develop guidance systems and other software for space development and defense applications. Does that pedigree permit the kind of entrepreneurial culture that is essential to software development?
Software development definitely requires a special kind of atmosphere. The optimal business platform depends on the kind of software.
   Yes, the individual creative genius or business genius has been the driving force in system and application software for the desktop computer. But developing space and defense software requires a bigger commitment of resources than individual entrepreneurs can muster. They are the province of large organizations: national space agencies, departments of defense, big computer corporations. Four Mitsubishi companies pooled their resources to create an effective provider of software for space and defense applications.
   To be sure, independent-minded software geniuses of an entrepreneurial disposition will tend to go off on their own. They are unlikely to work for long in a Mitsubishi organization. What we seek here are software engineers who enjoy being part of a team. What we try to cultivate is what someone has characterized as "collective genius."

How big is your company?
We have about 1,000 people. And we are very lean: more than 90% of our people are directly engaged in creating software. We have only a handful here at headquarters in Tokyo. Nearly everyone is at our three development centers.

Do you want to get bigger?
No. We are an optimal size for the work we do. And we can leverage our capabilities by drawing on the resources of Mitsubishi Electric and other Mitsubishi companies. We sometimes use training facilities and laboratories, for example, owned by Mitsubishi Electric. We also have the option of outsourcing portions of software development projects. I want to increase our sales and earnings, of course, but we can achieve that growth without inflating our organization.

But don't you depend on government contracts for most of your business?
The space development and defense agencies of the Japanese government are the end users for about 60% of our software development business. That business is subject, as you suggest, to the vagaries of legislative budgeting. On the other hand, Japan has made a basically unwavering commitment to space development and national defense. So our business in those sectors provides us with a solid foundation. That business does not grow rapidly, but nor does it shrink suddenly or unexpectedly.
   Complementing our core business in space and defense solutions is a growing portfolio of diversified business. For example, we exercise our expertise in communications technology in a broadband service that provides corporate clients with Internet application solutions. And we are putting our information processing capabilities to work in developing business in bioinformatics.

Bio what?
Bioinformatics. That is a technoscientific discipline that straddles information technology and biochemistry. Its most famous accomplishment has been the decoding of the human genome. That endeavor was as much a marvel of data processing as of biological inquiry. Researchers mobilized massive amounts of information processing capacity to decipher the genetic code. But parsing the genome was just the beginning. Now, we enter the realm of proteomics in earnest.

Prote... ?
Proteomics. The study of protein structure and function. Application-specific proteins manage what happens in our bodies. As we learn how to manipulate proteins, we discover ways to fight disease and counter other bodily disorders. And proteins, like genes, are basically units of information. Unlocking their secrets demands advanced information processing.
   We have begun marketing products for supporting different facets of bioinformatics. So far, our business in this sector centers on products developed by U.S. companies. But we add value through packaging and other enhancements [see related story, "Genetic Software"]. We are just getting started, but I perceive tremendous potential for our company in this sector.

What about business outside Japan?
Our business in developing space and defense software is inherently domestic. Governments naturally prefer domestic providers for that kind of software.
   Japan's space development and defense agencies are sophisticated customers, and they insist on the best in software. Their software compares favorably with that in any nation.
   Our diversified business, meanwhile, is very international. We obtain software from overseas developers to adapt to the Japanese market. And our international activity will broaden as our diversified business grows.