Melco

Melco Holdings Inc.
Public
Traded as TYO: 6676
Industry Computer hardware
Founded 1975 (Japan)
Headquarters Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
Key people
 Makoto Maki (CEO)
Products Electronics
Revenue JPY134.547 billion
Number of employees
 50 MELCO group related: 824
Website http://www.melcoinc.com/

Melco Holdings Inc. is a family business founded by Makoto Maki in 1975 and is located in Japan. The company's most recognizable brand is Buffalo Inc.

Buffalo Inc. is currently one of the 14 subsidiaries of Melco Holdings Inc., initially founded as an audio equipment manufacturer, the company entered the computer peripheral market in 1981 with an EEPROM writer. The name BUFFALO is derived from one of company's first products, a printer buffer and the name for the American Bison (Buffalo).

Name

Melco's name stands for Maki Engineering Laboratory COmpany.[1]

History

Melco Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 1986; currently its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacture of random access memory products, Flash memory products, USB products, CD-ROM/DVD-RW drives, hard disks, local area network products, printer buffers, Liquid crystal displays, Microsoft Windows accelerators, Personal computer components and CPU accelerators. A subsidiary of Melco provides corporate services in Japan like Internet set-up, Terminal installation/set-up, Computer education and Computer maintenance. The company has also started selling Solid-state drives in Japan.[2]

Buffalo Technology (USA) is the North American subsidiary of the group and is based in Austin, Texas.

Corporate Structure

Melco divisions

Japan
  • CFD Sales Inc.
  • Buffalo Technology (Japan)
  • Buffalo Logistics Inc.
  • Buffalo Lease Inc.
  • Buffalo Direct Inc.
  • Melco Personal Support Inc.
  • Buffalo IT Solutions Inc.
  • Liberty Shipping Inc.
  • Buffalo Kokuyo Supply Inc.
Asia
U.S.A.
Europe

Products

Controversy

In late 2006, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) won a lawsuit against Buffalo Inc. under which it would receive a royalty for every WLAN product worldwide.[3] The lawsuits basis was that CSIRO was granted US patent 5487069 in 1996, which grants elements of 802.11a/g wireless technology that had become an industry standard.[4] In June 2007, the federal court in Texas granted an injunction to prevent any more wireless products from shipping until a license agreement had been reached.[5] On September 19, 2008, the Federal Circuit ruled in Buffalo’s favor and has remanded this case to the district court ruling that the district court’s Summary Judgment was insufficient on the merits of obviousness of CSIRO’s patent. Therefore, this case will be tried again before the district court. In this connection Buffalo is hopeful that it will shortly be permitted to, once again, sell IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products in the United States.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Melco Holdings Inc. - Business Report 2007
  2. ↑ http://vr-zone.com/articles/buffalo-enters-the-consumer-ssd-market/15076.html
  3. ↑ Darren Murph, Engadget. "CSIRO wins landmark WLAN lawsuit against Buffalo, more to come?". November 16, 2006.
  4. ↑ Darren Murph, Engadget. "CSIRO wins landmark WLAN lawsuit against Buffalo, more to come?". November 16, 2006.
  5. ↑ Tim Higgins, TG Daily. "CSIRO shuts down Buffalo WLAN shipments. June 20, 2007."


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.