Symbian and Oracle form joint solutions lab to build wireless

Oracle Portal-to-Go and Oracle8i™ Lite enabled for the Symbian platform

LOS ANGELES, Oracle OpenWorld, November 16th, 1999 - Enabling smartphones and Communicators for the new age of universal wireless Internet access, Oracle Corp., the number one choice for e-business, and Symbian, the leading platform provider for wireless information devices, announced they would establish a joint development solutions lab to develop Oracle server-hosted applications and services extended to and optimized for the Symbian platform.

By integrating Oracle Portal-to-Go and Oracle8I™ Lite database technology on the Symbian platform, and thereby making inclusion of this technology an option for all Symbian licensees, Symbian and Oracle will provide seamless online and offline support for wireless computing and communications. As computing moves onto the network, wireless carriers will be able to capitalize on the opportunity of being the primary providers of corporate and consumer applications and services to wireless users anywhere in the world.

"With Oracle Portal-to-Go, the age of universal Internet access has dawned," said Denise Lahey, vice president of Oracle’s Mobile and Embedded Products Division, referring to the general availability of Oracle Portal-to-Go, announced at Telecom ’99 in October. "Oracle Portal-to-Go has made it possible for any wireless devices to access any Internet content and corporate information from anywhere at anytime. Oracle is working with Symbian to move the market into its next stage and enable wireless carriers to provide their users with powerful yet pocket-sized communications devices capable of computing both online and offline."

The joint development will combine the strengths of Oracle Portal-to-Go, Oracle8i Lite with the Symbian platform, designed for wireless information devices. Oracle8i Lite will extend the capabilities of Smartphones and Communicators, based on the Symbian platform, to provide local data persistence that allows users to download and cache subsets of applications and information, which they can continue to browse even while offline. The Oracle-Symbian development lab plans to focus on calendar, e-mail, contact management applications, customer relationship management packages and banking and shopping e-business services.

"Wireless workers and users will have access to corporate and consumer information and transactions with an easy-to-use interface and seamless connectivity via the Symbian platform and Oracle Portal-to-Go," said Juha Christensen, Executive Vice President, Symbian. "Cooperating with Oracle will help accelerate the development of the wireless Internet market and throw open the door to innovative and powerful applications and services for wireless information devices."

About Oracle

Oracle Corporation is the world’s leading supplier of software for information management, and the world’s second largest software company. With annual revenues of more than $9.1 billion, the company offers its database, application server, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education and support services, in more than 145 countries around the world.
Oracle

About Symbian

Symbian owns, licenses, develops and supports leading software, user interfaces, application frameworks and development tools for wireless information devices such as communicators and smartphones. Symbian aims to promote standards for the interoperability of wireless information devices with wireless networks, content services, and messaging and enterprise wide solutions.

With headquarters in London, Symbian has offices in Tokyo and Kanazawa, Japan; Ronneby, Sweden; Cambridge, UK and San Francisco Bay Area, USA. Symbian is owned by Ericsson, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia and Psion.
Symbian

Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle8i is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Enquiries

Please direct enquiries to: Symbian Ltd +44 207 154 1383 press@symbian.com	For further information on Oracle products: 650/506-7000
Reema Bahnasy Oracle Corp 650/506-3397 rbahnasy@us.oracle.com