Dr Spackman, British Telecom’s director of computing and information services, and Geoff Squires, head of Oracle Europe have signed a three part agreement under which British Telecom will standardise its mid-range systems on Oracle’s relational database management system (CI No 1,292). The contract states that Oracle will supply the relational databases to British Tele com. The company can then build Oracle into its own systems as well as embedding it in products for any external contracts for which it is bidding, subject to customer requirements. British Telecom has been rationalising its computer systems over the past year, integrating the products it uses under industry standards. This is so its data processing staff have fewer systems to train for, leaving them more time for system design and support across projects. Spackman stressed that Oracle had been chosen only as a standard for mid-range systems. For mainframes British Telecom will continue to use DB2 on IBM machines and Ingres on ICL, wheeling in Terada-ta’s DBC1012 as and when required. As yet no decision has been taken for database standardisat-ion in the personal computer environment. Spackman said it was unlikely that Oracle would be chosen here because of its complexity. British Telecom suggested that it may opt for two standards – one for 8-bit and 16-bit machines and one for micros with 80386 chip, 32-bit archi-tecture. In the mid-range environment Oracle will be used in all British Telecom subsidiaries across the world and is now Oracle’s largest UK customer, sitting between Shell Oil and the European Space Agency as one of its t{op European customers. Oracle’s collaboration with British Telecom goes back to 1982 when it was involved in the interim IPSI project. In the more recent past it has worked on projects such as British Telecom’s standards information database. As for the future, the two companies will work together on the European Telecommunication Information System, the consortium of European PTTs pushing to get common applications across Europe. Spackman denied, however, that there would be a direct British Telecom recommendation for Oracle in this sphere, but he added that there would be merits in choosing Oracle as the standard, not least because of its high profile as an industry leader in the US and Pacific Rim. British Telecom did not know how long it would take it to standardise internally on Oracle, but said there would be no retro-fitting of non-Oracle applications in the mid-range which will continue to run under other database systems. Squires added that Oracle, which now has a team of 40 people support-ing British Telecom, would continue to reap about 4% of its UK revenue from British Telecom following this contract, a percentage he said would be maintained despite Oracle’s phenomenal growth rate. – Katy Ring