On Monday, November 1, Fujitsu formally merged its 650,000-member InfoWeb Internet services provider (ISP) with the 2.85-million-member Nifty-Serve online service operated by its wholly owned Nifty Corp. subsidiary.

With 3.5 million members, the newly created @nifty "megaprovider" ranks as Japan's largest ISP, ahead of NEC's Biglobe (2.7 million members).

The @nifty service becomes the world's second-largest ISP, slightly larger than Germany's T-Online (3.3 million members) but far behind the US's 20-million-member AOL.

Currently, the merged @nifty offers some 800 user communities/discussion forums, 1,400 free and fee-based online content services, and 300 online store.

Nifty has announced several new services in conjunction with the @nifty launch.

These include an i-mode cellular phone notice board service and a Mobile Fitter conversion service (using Spyglass Prism) that will enable standard webpages to be displayed on mobile terminals such as cellular phones or palm-size computers.

Other new services are personalized log-on pages, a digital photo print service (in cooperation with Fuji Film), online insurance sales, and a combined shopping@nifty portal service that will have more than 500 stores by the end of March.

Fujitsu and Nifty are counting on the merger to give @nifty a major boost in both performance and prestige, and thus help them to leverage its further growth.

They hope the prospect of reaching Japan's largest single Internet user base will lure more top advertisers and content providers, while the promise of one-stop access to the most extensive online selection of Japanese-language content and services will, in turn, attract more subscribers.

Nifty has set a goal of nearly tripling @nifty's subscriber base to 10 million users within five years.

The @nifty pricing system is similar to those of Nifty-Serve and Infoweb.

The new service offers five payment options: up to 3, 15, or 150 hours per month for 950, 2,000, and 3,000 yen (US$9.05, $19.05, and $28.57), respectively; unlimited time for 5,000 yen (US$47.62) per month; and "open" access to @nifty content via connection through another ISP for 1,200 yen (US$11.43) per month.

As part of a membership recruitment campaign, new subscribers (from Nov. 1) can use @nifty free of charge through January 31, 2000.

Nifty also announced a new rate structure for corporate users of @nifty, who can now choose to pay based on the aggregate number of hours their employees spend online rather than just on the number of users.

Under the plan, corporate customers can select a flat-fee option of up to 150, 400, or 1,000 hours online per month, then pay a per-hour charge for usage in excess of the selected limit.

All Nifty-Serve and InfoWeb subscribers now have new @nifty e-mail and personal homepage addresses, but they are still able to use their previous users IDs and addresses -- Nifty will automatically forward e-mail messages and redirect homepage accesses.

As was the case with Nifty-Serve, Fujitsu will be responsible for operation and management of the @nifty system infrastructure while Nifty will handle ISP services and marketing.

According to Nifty President Taketsune Watanabe, the merger of Nifty-Serve and Infoweb has "absolutely no downside for our members."

He said they will continue to have access to all the same services at similar prices as before while enjoying improved online access.

By the end of this fiscal year (March 31, 2000) the number of nationwide @nifty access points will be increased from the current 177 (combined Nifty-Serve and InfoWeb access points) to 185 while the number of incoming lines will be doubled to 100,000.

The @nifty launch did not occur without some problems, however.

Among other troubles, Nifty experienced an unspecified hardware problem that prevented access to members' homepages for nearly 48 hours, from 3:30 PM on October 31 until about 2:00 PM on November 2.

And for a period of about 90 minutes, starting just before midnight on November 2, the new @nifty POP mail, newsgroup, and forum servers were down.