[Ads-l] Antedating of "Web TV"

[Dave Wilton]

Yes, this instance is a brand name. The Oracle use of the name was ill-advised. The other WebTV was already in existence, hence the later change to the name NCTV.

I used to work for OpenTV, yet another competitor in that space.



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Dan Goncharoff
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 5:31 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Web TV"

Wasn't this use of WebTV a prospective brand name announced by Oracle? A year later, another WebTV was brought out by a guy working for General Magic, and eventually bought by Microsoft and renamed MSN. A year after that, Oracle finally came out with its product, now called NCTV.

Neither of these uses of WebTV are generic -- both were brand names.

DanG

On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 11:10 AM, Hugo <hugovk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Added to the OED this quarter:
>
>  2. a. The distribution of original television programs and video 
> content over the World Wide Web; programming and video content of this 
> kind. Frequently attrib.
>
> 1995   Television on Web? in comp.infosystems.www.misc (Usenet
> newsgroup) 24 Oct.   Someone in the office today mentioned an article
> in the FT, stating that Intel & Oracle had done some deal to support 
> Web TV.
>
>
> ---
>
> Here's a couple of slightly earlier (~5 Oct 1995) of the same Web TV 
> from Oracle.
>
> ---
>
> Oracle Plans a PC With Video Feature
>
> Published: October 6, 1995
>
> GENEVA, Oct. 5— The Oracle Corporation said today that it planned to 
> offer by mid-1996 a low-cost computer that would provide video access 
> to the Internet.
>
> The new product, called Web TV, "will be available by the end of the 
> first quarter, or in the second quarter," Lawrence J. Ellison, the 
> company's chairman and chief executive, said at the Telecom 95 
> telecommunications-industry conference here. "It will video-enable the 
> Internet," he said.
>
> Mr. Ellison said Web TV would be available through an Oracle set-top 
> box costing $500. Cable access would cost about $30 a month in rental 
> charges.
>
> Web TV is planned to allow subscribers to download video on 
> high-quality lines from servers.
>
> "We are talking to different content suppliers so that they can offer 
> their servers to Web TV," he said.
>
> Oracle, which is based in Redwood City, Calif., announced various 
> other deals today, including one with Philips Electronics N.V. of the 
> Netherlands to enhance electronic mail services, and another with 
> Telefon LM Ericsson/Hewlett Packard Telecommunications on integrating 
> a telecommunications package with Oracle equipment.
>
> ---
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/06/business/oracle-plans-a-
> pc-with-video-feature.html
>
> ===
>
>   ORACLE TO INTRODUCE WEB TV IN 1996
>   Oracle Corp. said that it plans to offer a set top box costing $500
>   that will provide video access to the Internet, in the first half
>   of 1996.  The new product, to be called Web TV, will enable
>   subscribers to download video from servers on the 'Net.
>
>   According to Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison, "Movies on demand [do not
>   make sense]...but video-conferencing does and so does news on demand,
>   financial news.  That's worth updating."
>
>   The set top boxes will be based on the ARM chip, a microprocessor from
>   Advanced RISC Machines Group.  It is not known who will build the
>   boxes, but it certainly won't be Oracle.  According to Ellison, "We
>   are not going to be selling hardware."
>
>   [If I was a betting man, I would say that Apple would be the hardware
>   partner.  Apple and Oracle teamed up to create an interactive TV
>   system for British Telecom and ARM is partially owned by Apple].
>
>   (Reuters, Oct. 5, 1995 and Bloomberg Business News, Oct. 10, 1995)
>
> ---
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/"web$20tv"$
> 20before$3A1995$2F10$2F24/comp.lsi/Unr4OQ5oLnw/0ZinLZXH3H0J
>
>
>
> Hugo
>
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>

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