Scott linked the company's two sets of plans to an upcoming change in leadership at Toshiba, as well as to overall trends arising in the industry as the 21st century draws near.

"Time is the currency of the 90s," Scott noted during the press event, which was attended by Newsbytes at the Javits Center in New York City. Other emerging trends, he continued, include mobility, "homebasing," and a tendency by vendors to concentrate on their own "core competencies," while building "strategic alliances" with technical and non-technical partners alike.

Toshiba holds the top spot in the US portable PC market, and keeps moving farther ahead of its competitors in this arena, the VP maintained, citing market research statistics from IDC.

Also at the show in New York City, Toshiba issued four product announcements in the notebook category: the Portege 650 "ultimedia" model; the Tecrea 500 multimedia series; the Satellite Pro 420 "multimedia enhanced, value-conscious" notebook; and the Satellite 110, for the "value segment."

During the press conference, Scott credited Toshiba's emphasis on its own "core competency" of research and development (R&D) with helping to move the Japanese-based company into the number one position in the US.

In addition, he pointed out, Toshiba has already worked closely in the portable PC space with Intel on Pentium chip "portability," as well as with Microsoft on Windows 95, Siemens on computer memory, and IBM on joint development of TFT screens.

Now, Toshiba is about ready to team with content provider Time-Warner on DVD, Scott revealed.

After releasing a desktop PC with DVD in late 1996, Toshiba will debut its first notebook with DVD at the end of 1997, the Toshiba exec told the press.

In addition to playback, DVD will be capable of storing 6 gigabytes (GB) to 7GB of digital storage, Scott contended.

The new DVD technology will soon usurp the VCR (videocassette recorder), he predicted. But for this to happen, the user interface must be appropriate. Otherwise, consumers will not "watch TV" on a PC, Scott admitted.

Scott also acknowledged that, up to now, Toshiba's PC and TV divisions have tended to work somewhat independently of one another.

"But I think that all comes from the top," he maintained. Taizo Nishimuro, who will become president of Toshiba within the next month, takes a is "very global" approach, and is "not from (a heavy industrial) manufacturing background," the journalists were told.

Nishimuro is also quite interested in integrating technologies from Toshiba's "personal consumer electronics" and television divisions for Toshiba's forthcoming PCs with DVD, according to Scott. Up to now, in fact, Nishimuro has headed up the personal consumer electronics division, which produces PCs, household products, and DVDs.

Toshiba's partnering activities will also extend to the new "integrated" marketing and support center, where EDS will supply expertise in "process management," Scott divulged.

The new facility will use a "knowledge base" to keep track of individual customers throughout "pre- and post-sales" service and support, and data mining to "process trends" into "actionable items."

In addition, about six months after the new center opens later this year, Toshiba will add "interfaces to the Internet." The company might use the results of "electronic dialogs with customers" over the Web to "make changes to products," Scott revealed.

(Jacqueline Emigh/19960619/Reader Contact: Toshiba, 800-9994273; Press Contact: Poppe Tyson for Toshiba, 714-587-6266)