The overweighted MSX founder, Nishi Kazuhiko, quitted ASCII corporation, as of December 15, 2001.
Sources: - Nishi himself announced this fact in certain magazine called Dias (January 17). - He is no longer listed as an executive member (http://www.ascii.co.jp/info/profile/) though he was there a month ago. - "Biography" section in http://www.nishi.org, and also http://www.ascii.co.jp/info/profile/nishi/ lists "special advisor" position as a position of past. He currently works for a newspaper (and stock manager) company called Nihon Shoken Shinbun (http://www.kabutocho.co.jp), which is run by one of the former ASCII employees. One of Nishi's secretaries also quitted ASCII together with him. Nishi calls his room as "WEst" of which the word "nishi" stands for in Japanese. Background: CSK (Sega and a lot of others) disconnected ASCII Corporation as of November 29, 2001, a quite big incident in the world of finance. In turn, an unknown company called "Unison Capital" bought its position as ASCII owner. They decided to quit ASCII stock going into market, which is de facto end of ASCII as a proper corporate. ASCII stock price became as low as 70 US cent. Notes - English "biography" section of http://www.nishi.org however states "ASCII special advisor" as his present position. Reason of discrepancy between the Japanese counterpart is unknown. - WhoIs search reveals that the "nishi.org" domain is reserved by ASCII and E-store (a company former ASCII staff founded), since 5 years ago. Takamichi -- For info, see http://www.stack.nl/~wynke/MSX/listinfo.html
