Symbian Teams with Oracle, L&H to Optimize Platform
By making Oracle Portal-to-Go and Oracle8i Lite technology optimized for the Symbian platform, and including these technologies as an integrated option, the two companies 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.
The joint development will combine the strengths of Oracle's technology with Symbian's platform, which was designed for wireless information devices. Oracle8i Lite will extend the capabilities of smart phones and communicators 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 development lab plans to focus on calendar, e-mail, contact management applications, customer relationship management packages, and banking and shopping e-business services.
Language Technology to Improve Smart Phones
In other news, Lernout & Hauspie (L&H; Ieper, Belgium) has licensed its language technologies to Symbian for integration into Symbian's operating systems platform. Symbian's licensees include Ericsson, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, and Psion. The agreement helps to expand text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies to the growing market for smart phones and other Internet-enabled consumer devices.
Symbian licensed both L&H's International CorrectSpell and the Intellifinder reference engine technologies. CorrectSpell uses language-specific text analysis to check spelling and correct documents; IntelliFinder uses advanced indexing and retrieval methods with linguistically motivated algorithms to find information in structured reference works. Both technologies are available in a variety of languages.
The L&H technologies are included in Symbian's current-generation platform. The platform provides an operating system, customizable user interfaces, color support, fit-for-purpose application suites, Internet connectivity, and officially accredited PC-connectivity software.