Oracle Corp. and Wingcast said they have formed a strategic alliance to develop new wireless telematics applications and services.
As part of the alliance, Oracle and Wingcast immediately expect to begin work on a development center in San Diego to create, test and implement telematics services, the companies said.
Wingcast will deliver its applications based on Oracle’s 9i application server and database. All the applications will be voice-enabled, with the driving applications being navigation and Internet access.
“A car navigation system will no longer have static maps … every car is submitting its information to the Wingcast system,” said Larry Ellison, chairman and chief executive officer of Oracle. The system will then analyze that data and communicate back to users where the most traffic is and which route is least congested.
Harel Kodesh, president and chief executive officer of Wingcast, said the alliance will foster the building of a system based on today’s specifications, make full use of the developments made in the San Diego research center and give Wingcast a better understanding of how to offer more and better services.
Ellison also said that unlike General Motors Corp.’s OnStar initiative, which primarily communicates information from the car to an outside source, Wingcast and Oracle are working to bring information from outside the vehicle within. This approach is expected to be one of several differentiators from OnStar, which already boasts more than 1.3 million customers in the United States.
Wingcast, which is a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and Qualcomm Inc., plans to launch its services in 2003 model-year Ford and Nissan cars, approximately one year from now.
The partnership agreement is open-ended, and the two companies said they expect to work together indefinitely.
