Renraku Computer Systems

Profile:

Home Office Location: Chiba, Japan

President/CEO: Inazo Aneki

Chairman: Yukiako Watanabe

Corporation Status: Public Corporation

Major Shareholders:
 * None, no shareholder owns 10% or more of the listed stock

Primary Business
Leaving Fuchi to dominate the brain-computer interface and MCT to concentrate on computer interaction with the physical world, Renraku focuses its resources on the guts of the machine. They make their nuyen in computer data storage and processing.

Renraku holds patents on many fundamental algorithms for data compression, plus storage/retrieval schemes ad systems to handle non-linear equasions. The megacorp continues its research into these areas, frequently licensing its discoveries out to others.

Renraku also operates as a service bureau, leasing computer processing resources, storage space, data transfer/conversion, encryption/decryption, and system analysis/design consultants to paying customers. If a small corp suddenly starts a project requiring more computer processing horsepower than it has in-house, it can rent the extra processing resources from Renraku. In keeping with its role as a service provider, Renraku Seattle maintains SeaSource, the Seattle public data base.

Inazo Aneki's lifelong fascination with experimental sociology has provided the corp with a sideline that might someday become a major money-maker. The CEO's interest in investivating (meta)human societies and cultures in the information age prompted him to set up the Renraku Arcology in Seattle.

Corporate Structure
Renraku Computer Systems appears to have highly diversified ownership. As we mentioned above, the corp has no major shareholders (no one owns a 10 percent block of outstanding shares.) Board chairman Yukiako Watanabe dominates the board, more because of her forceful personality than because of the ammount of stock she owns. On most issues she and Aneki see eys-to-eys, so she lets him run Renraku pretty much as he likes. They disagree most often about Aneki's emphasis on the Seattle Arcology. Though Watanabe sees enough value in it that she's never tried to shut it down, she balks occasionally when Aneki diverts money from Renraku's more profitable divisions to shore up the arcology's sagging finances. In all such cases so far, however, Aneki has convinced her to see his side.

Major Divisions
Renraku organizes its major divisions along regional lines. Individual departments within those divisions specialize by function and/or by region, depending on specific circumstances. The major divisions include, Renraku America, which covers both North and South America; Renraku Asia; Renraku Europa; and Renraku Australasia. In turn, Renraku America has regional subdivisions such as Renraku Seattle and functional subdivisions such as Renraku Pan-System Consulting.

Executives & Big Wigs:

 * Dr. Sherman Huang
 * Divisional Manager, Renraku America


 * Donald Acres
 * Project Manager, Renraku Arcology


 * Tev Greenwaldt
 * Divisional Manager, Renraku Asia


 * Lucy Don
 * Divisional Manager, Renraku Australasia


 * Karl Stadt
 * Divisional Manager, Renraku Europe