After all its acquisitions, Tewkesbury, Massachusetts-based Avid Technology Inc must be the market leader, but it faces heavyweight competition now that Sony Corp and Oracle Corp have signed a letter of intent to work together to develop video, audio and text news database products with the aim of revolutionising the professional broadcast and production industry. They plan to combine Oracle’s expertise in multimedia database management with Sony’s strength in television broadcast and production to create a new digital electronic newsgathering video system. The first step will be to combine video and audio clips with wire service text on a single edit workstation, and will show a prototype of the first joint product at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas in April. They aim to develop a client-server newsroom computing network as a key element of Sony’s digital broadcast station system, incorporating acquisition, production, master control, archiving and play to air. As currently planned, Oracle will provide its Oracle New Media suite including Oracle Media Server and Media Objects, but there is no word on what machine will be used to run the software.
