My text below tries to give a sense of these figures. In this section we integrate the findings of the preceding chapters and focus on areas where Japanese efforts have been intense, and are likely to have effects that transcend Japan in a significant way. In terms of infrastructure technology, the most significant advances we saw were in multimedia technology. These capabilities are not yet well integrated into networks and standards are lagging. The availability of such links will further motivate this direction and cause pressure for integration of advanced multimedia, especially image technology, into databases.
Today there is significant dependence in Japan on foreign database management system technology.
Most of the vendors of these database management systems are planning to provide support for the management of large, variable-sized data elements, as needed for multimedia database management. It will depend on the effectiveness of these extensions whether established DBMSs will be used for the multimedia services of the future. Otherwise it will be necessary for the developers of multimedia systems to develop their own DBMSs. The availability of standards such as SQL and ADA, makes entry of new DBMSs that satisfy these standards feasible. Even if they are less mature, having multimedia capability can be a decisive factor in the market.