OTHER NEWS - April 12, 1993

Japanese Companies to Slow Product Turnover: Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. plan to extend the life cycles of some of their products to two to three years from the current one year, a Japanese newspaper reported. The companies will prolong product cycles of household appliances, including refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said. Prolonging product cycles enables consumer electronics companies to reduce research and development costs associated with incremental changes in product design and efficiency and concentrate on more basic advances.