- Oracle is tapping into telco APIs to enable new cloud applications for enterprise customers
- The APIs feed data into Oracle's Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP)
- Oracle's big problem now is explaining to customers why this complex tech is such a game changer
It took me a while to write this story because for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I should write it. See, Oracle has something really cool on their hands. But the problem lies in communicating exactly why it’s a game changer. That’s in part because it’s not – at least not yet – but it sure has the potential to be.
The “something” in question is Oracle’s Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP), which made its debut at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. At the time, Oracle was mostly pitching a vision – one which IDC’s John Byrne politely called “aspirational” in an interview with Fierce. But Oracle took a concrete step forward last month when it announced its first use case – enabling critical IoT connectivity via an API connection into AT&T’s network.
As Oracle Group VP of Technology Andrew De La Torre explained to Fierce, the partnership allows ECP applications in the cloud to tap into connectivity all the way down to the device level through AT&T’s network (and the AT&T-run FirstNet as well). That wasn't possible without the API interconnect since, as De La Torre noted, ECP is just a platform and not a network.
I could tell you everything De La Torre said about the public safety use cases enabled via this partnership – better emergency response coordination and faster jail admissions, for example – but what’s more important is that public safety is the first of five big enterprise verticals Oracle is chasing with ECP and network API interconnects.
Beyond public safety, he said, the company is targeting the food and beverage, healthcare, energy and water, and construction and engineering segments.
The first iteration of its food and beverage offering – a restaurant in a box package with a router, point of sale and tablets for greeters and self-ordering systems that all runs on ECP – is set to come out later this year. Products in the remaining three categories are expected to follow within 14-16 months, he added, though the timeline for its healthcare offering could accelerate.
It’s not exactly clear what the applications in these verticals will be, but De La Torre said AT&T isn’t the only carrier Oracle has signed with. He said it is also not limiting itself to working with telecoms – it is also eyeing satellite and private network deals as well.
According to De La Torre, the thing that’s special about what it’s doing with ECP is that Oracle has essentially created the cloud version of grab-and-go applications. Usually, he said, an enterprise can work with a cloud provider to create a certain application but is left to its own devices to source the cloud and network resources needed to run and manage it. It can be a complex process. Oracle is trying to take that pain away, he said.
Comms problem
But Oracle faces an uphill comms battle explaining the value of ECP to customers and investors alike.
“They’re trying to articulate a very complicated, ambitious value proposition,” Byrne said. “It’s easier said than done. This is an opportunity for them to show the benefit in one vertical – public safety. And what they’re trying to say we can use this in other areas – lather, rinse, repeat.”
He added that APIs could end up being the key that allows Oracle to unlock new value from its existing deep relationships in both telco and vertical markets. In a nutshell, network APIs could make communications consumable – via ECP – in a language that Oracle’s enterprise customers can speak.
“They’ve got really good penetration in telco and they’ve got really good penetration within a lot of these other vertical markets,” Byrne said. The question is “how do you bring those two worlds together so that one plus one is more than two. I think this has a lot of potential to do that in a way they’ve not been able to do in the past.”
In this case, though, the hurdle is not the technology but rather the comms strategy around it.
“Sometimes you’re so immersed in your own environment that you don’t take a step back and say ‘how is this going to be perceived by someone who is living and breathing this 24/7?’” he said.
Bryne concluded with a joke: “They need an analyst to write a whitepaper for them” to explain things.