Oracle Corp is rushing multimedia products to market, and next up will be Oracle Video Online, chief executive Larry Ellison told Reuter at the Oracle Financial Services conference in New York last week. Oracle Video Online will enable its customers and on-line services to offer video over digital telephone lines. Oracle hopes to have Oracle Video Online ready for its database customers and partners in March, but it plans to work with on-line service providers, such as America Online Inc, so that they can provide video to their customers. Oracle is working with Intel Corp and its ProShare video conferencing technology to make on-line services video-centric, using currently available Integrated Services Digital Network lines. Oracle plans to work with all on-line service providers apart from Microsoft Corp. We have built all this stuff for broadband, Ellison said at the conference, adding that widespread deployment of broadband cable is going more slowly than anticipated. So we thought, why don’t we deliver the technology now over narrowband ISDN, he added. One application planned for Video Online will be video mail, with a video of the person speaking, to supplement electronic mail – so we can expect some truly delightful on-line Christmas cards next year. Oracle is also working with Cable News Network and Cable NBC to offer news on demand. Oracle Video Online will be bundled with other Oracle products and will be included to Oracle customers as part of their support package, with the payback coming from deals it sets with on-line service providers, telephone companies and others, after the first half of next year.
