HP World: HP, Oracle on 'e-speaking' terms

Oracle endorsed Hewlett-Packard's "e-speak" technology Tuesday as part of a partnership the two announced at HP World '99 Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

Oracle will build support for e-speak into its Oracle 8i database, and the two companies will host labs and establish what the two called joint expert centres to promote the use of e-speak.

Ann Livermore, CEO of HP's Enterprise Computing Group, called the Oracle partnership "one of the most critical alliances we have in e-services".

Oracle President Ray Lane went further, saying with a straight face that "this is probably going to be part of a change in our industry and in industry at large that we haven't seen in as much as 100 years". E-speak is a HP technology effort to create middleware that will let businesses dynamically build applications -- for instance, a Web site that rents apartments might also show customers rental truck availability in their area by connecting to rental truck sites on demand.

One HP official told ZDNN that the deal should greatly help HP promote its fledgling e-speak initiative. "Oracle is the database king, and one of the developer kings. So it's quite important for us to get this endorsement," said Roberto Medrano, general manager of HP's e-services division. Medrano, who is driving the partnership push at HP, says the company is continuing to try to add partners for e-speak, and to work with customers interested in implementing the technology.

The key to the deal is developer exposure. Lane said Oracle has nearly half a million developers working with it, and it will now work with them to incorporate e-speak into their development efforts.