Oracle Launches Net Phone Spin-off

Hoping to capitalize on the convergence of wireless communication and the Internet, Oracle Corp. Chairman and CEO Lawrence J. Ellison said today his company has formed a spin-off, OracleMobile.com, with the purpose of turning the telephone into an Internet appliance.

In what was billed as an "important announcement in the
wireless Internet industry," Ellison spoke to the press and industry
analysts
today in New York City. While no major new technological ground was
broken, what emerged from the hour-long presentation was the
certainty that new money and technological muscle were about to make
their presences felt on the Internet.

Ellison reminded his listeners that although there were approximately
140 million Internet users around the world today, and although that
number is expected to double by 2001, the total of Internet users
"pales in comparison" to the number of users of wireless telephones
in the world.

As for Internet-enabled phones, Ellison said there are now
about 50 million wireless Internet-enabled telephones around the
globe. That number will soon top 1 billion, he believes.

Although we may not be as aware of the phenomenon in the United
States, the per capita use of wireless telephones in Asia and Europe
is much higher than in the United States, Ellison pointed out, and
for several reasons.

In Asia and Europe the cost of access the Internet is relatively high.
This,
coupled with lower wireless telecommunications costs in those areas, plus
the higher quality of wireless telephones available abroad, have made
wireless telecommunications not only a preferred method of
communicating, but also a preferred means of accessing the Internet.

Ellison said he believes that in a few short years, people all over
the world will have cell phones, and that by 2002, every new cell phone
will have access to the Internet.

In sheer numbers alone, there will be far more access to the Internet
via wireless telephones, Ellison believes, than there will be via the
PC. In fact, Ellison said that the PC will be overwhelmed in numbers
by the various types of non-PC devices that will have the ability to
access the net.

To accomplish his vision of convergence, Ellison announced that
Oracle has developed a new technology, "Portal-to-Go," that
can work on any Internet enabled telephone. Portal-to-Go can put
Internet content into any Net-enabled telephone, by taking existing
Web content and "mapping" it onto the phone so that it fits the
telephone's screen size.

In addition, Ellison said, the process of Portal-to-Go taking
existing Web content and mapping it so that it can be seen on
existing phones can now be done in hours or days,
rather than months or years. Thus, the owner of a Web site
wanting to take advantage of Portal-to-Go technology can be up and
running is a relatively short time.

Ellison said that Oracle would be happy to sell Portal-to-Go
technology to any company that wants to buy it for use on their Web
site. However, he indicated this might not be the best business
model to follow.

Instead, Ellison revealed that Oracle has developed
its own Web portal, using the new technology, and that it would host
the content of e-retailers so that they didn't have to make an
initial purchase of Portal-to-Go technology.

Ellison said he envisions creating a "universal hub site" that
will aggregate the content of its partner sites, and which will be a
single place for consumers to go for anything.

Some examples of the advantage of the new Portal-to-Go technology
would be notification via a person's wireless phone that their
auction bid was just overbid, or that their businesses' sales
contract was just underbid. Web-enabled cell phone users would be
notified of their airplane's departure gate prior to their arrival at
the airport. More importantly, they'd be notified of any delays or
cancellations in their flights.

There would also be an option on Oracle's new site for
travelers to immediately book alternative flights, all via their
wireless phone.

Of course, Ellison was quick to point out, there is additional marketing
potential. A music-lover could access the Internet while listening to the
radio and not only obtain information about the song that was then
playing, but also buy the CD. Restaurant reservations, stock purchases
and sales could also be done over the telephone, through one interface.

Ellison estimates that Oracle's singular interface will multiply site
traffic two- or three-fold.

Also on the horizon for Oracle's new Web portal is speech-recognition
capability, currently being developed with Motorola, that will enable
wireless users to greatly reduce the amount of keys that need to be
punched on a keypad when downloading information from the Internet.

The Portal-to-Go Web site is now up, Ellison said. However, because
there is presently a cybersquatter holding on to the domain name of
OracleMobile, the URL of Oracle's new site - at least until his
lawyers have finished "talking" with the cybersquatters - is
http://www.oramobile.com.

And, if there was any doubt about how much of a presence Oracle would
be making on the Internet, Ellison said that they his company was not
just going after getting consumers to use the new Web portal, but
that Oracle would actively engage in Web site hosting, as well as
selling the Portal-to-Go technology.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.