nCube Corp hopes its fortunes will be revived by the increased interest in interactive television and Web broadcasting. The company, which recently announced price reductions on its range of video servers by intensely focusing its products on video streaming, (CI No 3,292) says the market for video-on-demand failed to materialise in the way that vendors had originally anticipated a couple of years ago. But according to spokesman George Palmer, with the era of interactive TV and Web broadcasting creeping ever closer, telecommunications companies, cable companies and large conglomerates are starting to implement video on demand systems.We’re seeing a definite acceleration in demand. We saw a four to five times increase in sales and opportunities this year especially the second half of the year and next year we will see a number of significant deployments, he said. We are also seeing a rise in the quantity of distance learning projects and hospitality projects. (e.g. in the hotel and leisure industries.) Palmer refused to concede that the company was suffering from increased competition from Digital Equipment Corp Alpha servers running Windows NT since the system giant’s link up with Oracle Corp back in July (CI No 3,201). NCube was once viewed as the most likely partner for Oracle, given the personal interest and investment in the company by Oracle chairman and chief executive officer – but instead Oracle chose Alpha servers as the primary development platform for its Video Server software. DEC now competes with nCube to partner Oracle in major accounts
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