France Telecom is giving strong hints that it is likely to replace the Minitel terminal with a Network Computer, which would instantly create an enormous market for Oracle Corp’s baby in France, because without a Minitel terminal, you have no access to the phone book there. There is no word on which variant of the specification would be used, but France could be expected to insist that the things were made in France and used a microprocessor fabricated by a French company. In that case an iAPX-86 variant from SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV would be likely. The original Minitel was given away free (but you had to pay for the call to look up each number) but the company charges for newer, premium models, and a Network Computer version would be likely to fall into that category. Using a Network Computer would go some way towards neutralizing the threat of the Internet to the Minitel network.
