Oracle Corp has teamed up with Philips Electronics NV to further Larry Ellison’s communications dreams, offering electronic mail without personal computers. The system uses Philips telephones that include small display screen and keyboard. The Philips Home Services unit in Burlington, Massachusetts plans to aim the service at people that are using its screen phones for home banking services, which Philips manages in partnerships with Citicorp, Visa International and others. Oracle’s contribution is software that enables users to send messages to other phones and personal computers across the Internet and other electronic mail systems.Citicorp and Visa screen-phone customers, who typically pay monthly charges to lease their phones, will receive free electronic mailboxes to receive messages, but will pay an undetermined fee to send messages. The companies plan to test the service with up to 20,000 screen phone users in the fourth quarter.
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