Digital, Oracle in VOD tie-up
COMPUTER-MAKER Digital Equipment Hong Kong and database vendor Oracle Systems Hong Kong have joined forces in a bid to supply the technology behind Hongkong Telecom's pioneering video-on-demand (VOD) service.
Both companies, which play a key role in the video server hardware and software markets in the United States and Europe, submitted a joint tender to Hongkong Telecom before yesterday's deadline. A decision on the contract to supply the equipment for a full-scale VOD service following Hongkong Telecom's initial trials is expected in late summer.
Hongkong Telecom director of multimedia services Dr William Lo said last week the company was expecting up to 15 proposals from combinations of vendors. A shortlist of proposals would be ready in a month, he said.
'At the end of February, we sent out requests for proposals to some 36 vendors . . . to telecom companies and computers and software vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Digital, Oracle and Sybase,' Dr Lo said.
'They have to come back with a total end-to-end platform. No single vendor can do that, so they will have to form a consortium. We are anticipating 10 to 15 proposals altogether.' Hongkong Telecom plans to build a platform system for full-scale multimedia services by April next year, and VOD is just the tip of the iceberg. The VOD trial, which started in September last year, is still going on. The first phase of the trial - only a technology test, according to Dr Lo - was completed in February. Hongkong Telecom received approval from the Office of the Telecommunication Authority (OFTA) in March to test the service on the market.
About 350 households in 15 areas and in different income segments are receiving the service as part of Hongkong Telecom's test of demographics, according to Dr Lo. Households involved in the testing were not being charged for the VOD services, but they would be from July 1 for the last three months of the trial, he said. This would provide valuable data on usage patterns.
Telecom was working with a number of different groups on the difficult exercise of determining the charge structures, Dr Lo said.