The Chicago, Illinois-based Baby Bell Ameritech Corp is setting out to help its customers create proprietary information delivery networks of multimedia presentations combining text, video images, animation and sound. It has announced an alliance with software firm Scala Inc of Reston, Virginia to market cost-effective and easy to use information networks, using Scala’s proprietary multimedia network product, InfoChannel, for things such as employee information video magazines, class registration and campus event information networks for schools and point-of-sale advertising displays for retailers, for example. Ameritech will design, install, maintain, and provide training for the multimedia networks. InfoChannel software will be used to create the on-screen material and to update, schedule and transmit the information over standard telephone lines. The alliance also calls for the joint development of multimedia products for customers in specific markets. Businesses, government agencies and schools can create these multimedia programs and then transmit them over standard telephone lines or ISDN lines to stores, remote offices, schools or other sites. The information can be updated and displayed at these sites on television sets, on desktop computer monitors or at interactive touch-screen kiosks.
