More Competition
Oracle Launches Consumer Web Portal
By BRUCE MEYERSON
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Oracle Corp., trying to push its software to the center of the wireless Internet frenzy, is creating a new company to specialize in shrinking Web sites for tiny cell phone screens and launching a new Web portal to provide mobile access to major consumer brands including Amazon.com, eBay and ETrade.
The new subsidiary and portal, both named OracleMobile.com, are solo ventures for now, but talks are being held with outside investors and a public offering of stock is likely, Oracle executives said Tuesday.
Oracle, the leader in database software, rushed to announce the initiative even before rights to the most logical Web address could be secured from the current owner - maybe because Oracle wanted to avoid the blare of next week's wireless trade show in New Orleans and a certain barrage of new hype about the presumably sure-fire future of mobile Web surfing.
For that reason, the OracleMobile site that went live on Tuesday resides at ``www.oramobile.com' instead of ``www.OracleMobile.com,' though Oracle chairman and chief executive Larry Ellison quickly asserted that ``we'll have both of them shortly.'
The goal of the new portal is to gather as many popular consumer services as possible under one roof, thereby minimizing the effort it takes to access them while typing on a mobile phone's keypad. To that end, Oracle also said it is partnering with Motorola on the development of voice recognition technology that will minimize the need for typing altogether.
While telephone companies like Sprint and BellSouth are already offering Internet and messaging services for portable devices, the path toward ``everywhere' Internet access has been slowed by an obvious obstacle: adapting complex Web sites that were designed for the power and screen size of a desktop computer, not a mobile phone.
``Even different cell phones have different screens,' said Ellison, adding that the new venture will rely heavily on Oracle's expertise in building Web site databases and the Portal-To-Go technology that Oracle developed to format those sites for wireless delivery. ``This is what Oracle does. We put up Web sites quickly. Virtually every large Internet site uses Oracle technology.'
The new venture will be competing with other big software players such as Microsoft and the Sun-Netscape Alliance, as well as Phone.com, whose ``kit' for its wireless programming format has been downloaded from the Web by more than 20,000 software developers.
Oracle said Portal-To-Go has an advantage from competing technologies because a developer won't have to rewrite a Web application and content from scratch.
``It enables you to take existing content and Web applications and get it mobile in hours and days, not months,' said Ellison.
While companies can buy Oracle's software to build their wireless Web links, another element of the new Oracle initiative will be to develop wireless applications for other companies and host their sites on Oracle's servers.
But in addition to enabling businesses for e-commerce, Oracle is taking the unusual step of forming its own consumer Web destination that will need to compete with established portal giants such as Yahoo! and AOL.com, a challenge all the more notable because Oracle's major role in enabling e-commerce is mostly hidden from consumers.
Ellison and Denise Lahey, the Oracle executive named to head OracleMobile, downplayed the competition, arguing that the arduous process of typing on a mobile phone demands the creation of a true one-stop shop for accessing a multitude of popular Web sites and services. Initially, the OracleMobile site also features content to UPS.com, Travelocity.com, Mapquest.com, Zagat.com, ScreamingMedia and The Weather Channel. |
