Marport and Koden Conduct Joint Product Planning Session
This past week, senior technical and commercial personnel from Marport and Koden attended a product planning session in Orlando, Florida. The session was related to the Strategic Alliance Agreement that Marport and Koden signed in May, 2008. Under the terms of that agreement, both companies are collaborating on the development of new sonar products based on Marport’s Software Defined Sonar technology and Koden’s significant experience in marine electronics. Koden also distributes Marport’s commercial fishing products in Japan and has already realized commercial success, particularly within the Hokkaido fishing fleet.
Today, companies are trying to balance customer demand for increased innovation and shorter time-to-market. As a result, many leading technology companies are changing the way they develop new products. The existing synergies between Marport and Koden are obvious, and the decision to co-develop new products is demonstrating the value of Software Defined Sonar technology across a broader market segment.
Koden has a long and distinguished history in marine electronics. The company was founded in 1947 – two years after World War II – by Dr. Y. Ito, whose position was pivotal at the Naval Technical Research Department as a Captain in the former Japanese Imperial Navy. His hope was to make a peaceful contribution to the world by leveraging the advanced technologies that were developed in his naval days. For Japan and its people, this new era was a restart from “nothing”. The whole country was suffering from shortages in practically everything, and the most crucial of all, obviously, was the shortage of food. Koden’s marine electronics were welcomed into the Japanese fishing fleet and made significant contributions to increase catch efficiency. Over the years, Koden continued to introduce major technical innovations, such as transistors, integrated circuits, computers, and color visualization into its products ahead of competitors. The company has released a large number of ground-breaking marine electronics – including automatic radio direction finder, synchronized sonar, the world’s first color echo sounder and marine color radar.
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