Started joint development with Mr. Tanaka of Shinobiashi INC.
TOKYO – March 07, 2024– Prime Strategy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter, “Prime Strategy”) announced that we have started joint development with Mr. Shohei Tanaka of Shinobiashi INC., Japan’s leading WooCommerce developer, in order to solve issues faced by Japanese e-commerce sites, such as dealing with Japan’s unique business practices and security.
WooCommerce, the world’s most popular e-commerce platform
WooCommerce, which is provided as a plug-in (extension) for WordPress, is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world.
WooCommerce is used in 19% of e-commerce sites worldwide*1. In Japan, it is also the most widely used open-source e-commerce platform*2.
1 eCommerce Usage Distribution on the Entire Internet
https://trends.builtwith.com/shop/traffic/Entire-Internet
2 eCommerce Usage Distribution in Japan
https://trends.builtwith.com/shop/country/Japan
Shohei Tanaka, the first WooExpert in Japan
We have collaborated with Shohei Tanaka, president of Shinobiashi INC. on many projects, including bundling a WooCommerce plug-in with KUSANAGI that enables a unique Japanese payment method.
Shinobiashi INC. was the first company in Japan to be certified as a WooExpert*.
In addition, the company was listed on the website as the first “Silver Certified WooExpert” in Asia, and has been recognized for its high technical capabilities and knowledge of WooCommerce.
*WooExperts are certified as WooExperts when their high level of technical skills and achievements are recognized through a rigorous review process by the developer of WooCommerce. After certification, you will be listed on the WooExpert site by accumulating achievements in site production, contribution to WooCommerce as open source, and proof of technical skills.
KUSANAGI Performance Supports EC Platforms
Shinobiashi INC. has adopted KUSANAGI as the foundation for their e-commerce site building service, “SoftStepsEC“.
At SoftStepsEC, paid content sites with over 1 million PV per month and product sales sites with monthly sales of over 40 million yen are operating stably.
We want to solve the problems of EC site production in Japan – Background of joint development
We need to add dedicated settings and functions to build an e-commerce site tailored to Japanese business practices with WooCommerce.
In addition, the man-hours required to set up an e-commerce site will further increase as the Japanese government proposes “2025 Cashless Payment Strictures” and “2024 Issues in the Transportation” are addressed.
As Web sites become more attacked, security needs to increase.
Therefore, Shinobiashi INC., which has high expertise in WooCommerce, and we, the developer of KUSANAGI, which is fast, secure, and convenient, decided to collaborate in order to contribute to the development of e-commerce sites in Japan.
Development Overview and Roadmap
Development Policy
1. Easier WooCommerce installation
When installing (provisioning) WordPress with KUSANAGI, we will add an option to install WooCommerce together.
2. Automation of initial setup
Automatically configure settings especially required by Japanese business practices to reduce man-hours for initial setup.
3. Security
Includes plug-ins necessary for WooCommerce security.Combined with KUSANAGI’s basic security and automatic updates of WordPress plugins, etc., it makes it easier to run a secure site.
Main Development Items
The following functions will be developed to enhance security for operators to comply with stricter cashless payment regulations, and to counter the Personal Information Protection Law.
- Two-step verification function for administrators
- Authentication functions other than passwords (e.g., passkey support) for purchases and password changes
- Compliance with storage obligations for provision to third parties under the Personal Information Protection Law
- Basic authentication for administrator login page
- Support for Address Verification Service (AVS) in accordance with the 3D Secure requirement
- Support for periodic updates
These functions will be developed as new plug-ins and shipped with KUSANAGI along with existing plug-ins that have been carefully examined. They will also be available in “SoftStepsEC”.
Availability
These features are scheduled to be available in the summer of 2024.
Comment from Mr. Shohei Tanaka, President of Shinobiashi INC.
We and Shinobiashi INC. have entered into the KUSANAGI Strategic Alliance Partner.
Mr. Tanaka commented on the collaboration and joint development efforts.
Prime Strategy’s KUSANGI is a great fit for non-caching, concurrently requested systems such as WooCommerce, and has many of the elements that online store owners need. It also has a strong community for developers, providing a solid foundation for building with confidence.
In addition, we will continue to contribute to the WooCommerce community in Japan and the rest of Asia by taking advantage of our first WooExpert certification in Japan in the summer of 2023 and our first Silver ranking in Asia in December 2023.
We have worked with Prime Strategy in the past in various areas, including the community, and we are pleased to be officially partnering and collaborating with them.
We will continue to work together with our partners to realize the development of the open source ecosystem so that many people can use WordPress and CMS conveniently and safely.
The Ultra-fast CMS platform “KUSANAGI”
KUSANAGI is a fast and secure virtual machine image developed and provided by Prime Strategy. KUSANAGI is available in 215 regions in 37 countries, on 29 major domestic and international platforms (as of December 2023), with a cumulative total of over 80,000 units in operation (as of Octocer 2023).
KUSANAGI 9 can handle more than 25,000 concurrent requests per second (HTTP) in a typical cloud environment (1) when using page caching, and more than 210 concurrent requests per second (both HTTP and HTTPS) when not using page caching. Compared to the standard LAMP environment (2), the speedup is approximately 2,330 times faster when page cache is used, and approximately 20 times faster when page cache is not used.
Three editions are offered: the “Free Edition” for personal use, the paid “Business Edition” for business use, and the paid top-of-the-line “Premium Edition” for business use, which includes the WEXAL® Page Speed Technology® web acceleration engine.
*1 Microsoft Azure Standard D4as_v4instance (2.35Ghz AMD EPYC 7452 processor 4 vCPU, 16GiB), Premium SSD LRS, East Japan Region, KUSANAGI 9.1.0-1, PHP 7.4.27, Nginx 1.21.4, MariaDB 10.5.13, WordPress 5.8.2
*2: Microsoft Azure Standard D4as_v4 instance (2.35Ghz AMD EPYC 7452 processor 4 vCPU, 16GiB), Premium SSD LRS, East Japan Region, CentOS 7.9.2009, PHP 5.6.40, Apache 2.4.6, MariaDB 5.5.68, WordPress 5.8.2
About Prime Strategy
Prime Strategy, Co., Ltd. is a software developer providing web acceleration solutions. We have locations in Tokyo and New York.
| Company Name | Prime Strategy Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard Market 5250) |
| Main Office | Sumitomo Fudosan Ichibancho Bldg. 1F, 8, Ichiban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Japan 102-0082 |
| Service Details | KUSANAGI Stack Business ・Management service ・Website acceleration service ・System integration service KUSANAGI Stack Development and Provision ・Ultra-fast CMS platform “KUSANAGI” ・Web Acceleration Engine ”WEXAL® Page Speed Technology®” ・Strategic AI “ONIMARU® David” |
| URL | https://www.prime-strategy.co.jp/en/ |
Press Contacts
Prime Strategy Co., Ltd.
Chieko Aihara
Sumitomo Fudosan Ichibancho Bldg. 1F, 8, Ichiban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Japan 102-0082
Phone: 81-3-6551-2995 / Fax: 81-3-6551-2941
Mail : pr@prime-strategy.co.jp
*Company and product titles mentioned in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
