Oracle Corporation [NASDAQ:ORCL]and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) are joining forces to build Phil-Net, a computer network system incorporating network computers (NC) and the Oracle Learning Architecture (OLA), geared towards "network enabling" the Philippines.

Bernard Yu, managing director of Oracle Systems Philippines, Inc. (OSPI), said that Phil-Net, conceived only a month ago, is a response to President Ramos' call to pole-vault the country's economy and to put an end to the Philippines' perennial catch-up image relative to its Asian neighbors.

"With Phil-Net, we will go NC right away, and this comes at a time when people are hot about Java, hot about Oracle," says Yu.

This move comes a year after Oracle, together with Apple, IBM, Netscape and Sun, published the Network Computer Reference Profile (NCRP) where it outlined its directions toward cutting down the cost of ownership for PCs by concentrating programs to the server, and by developing a low-cost server access device which is the NC.

Oracle Corporation Chairman and CEO Lawrence Ellison and PLDT Chairman Roberto Romulo sealed the MOU with President Ramos witnessing the event held at Redwood Shores in California on May 15, 1997. Ellison hosted a luncheon for Ramos' entourage during the two-hour stop. Apparently it was the first time a head of state visited Oracle.

"This agreement between one of the world's largest software companies and the Philippines' leading telecommunications company will help the Philippines develop the national infrastructure to provide new educational tools to teachers, parents, and students," Ramos said.

For his part, Ellison commented that the project signifies that the Philippines is on the right track to competitively position itself for the Information Age. "Oracle's range of software products are designed to manage and deliver, securely and reliably, volumes of information to large groups of people over vast computer networks. This network computing model and the simplicity of the network computer not only reduces the cost-of-entry and total cost of ownership, but drastically shortens the user's learning curve, enabling broader access to the power of information."

Meanwhile, Yu dismissed as untrue news articles that pointed to the project as amounting to PhP4.5 billion. "We wouldn't like to put a price on the project, although this is definitely a worthy one," comments Yu. He cited that Oracle is donating all the software for the meantime, and that the corresponding price of the donations could only be quantified at the later phase of the project.

A management team, which consists of two representatives from Oracle Asia Pacific and two from PLDT, will meet first week of June to start discussing specific details for the project. Yu hopes that Phil-Net's management team would be able to decide on which three universities from the country's three major islands - Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao - will be tapped as pilot users of the network for the Phase I of the project.

Phase I, says Yu, would probably take off with seven months to a year's time. Phase II, which would entail piloting of some products over the network, will follow. Finally, on the third year, commercialization of the network applications, including electronic commerce, will begin.

Yu, who is an executive sponsor of the Phil-Net, further said that the management team should be able to decide which other suppliers will be involved in the project after the said meeting.

Lastly, the OSPI chief debunked the news that the Redwood Shores company plans to establish a regional hub in the country. "It's not true," Yu concluded.

Source: Newsbytes