Event Report: Oracle Open World

(Copyrighted 2007. Photo by R Wang. All rights reserved)

Despite the stormy night before, Oracle kicked-off Open World to a classic San Francisco weekend, with blue skies, 70 degree weather, and the buzz and excitement one can only expect with 50,000 people packed around Moscone.

Tonight focused on celebrating 30 years of Oracle history and innovation. Attendees were treated to a history of Oracle from the early days of database to tools/middleware, and apps.

Some quick observations about attendees from conversations on the ground:

• Feeling the effect of the Oracle surround strategy. Oracle customers and partners by acquisition was a common theme among attendees. Over the course of the past 4 years, even customers in pharma, oil and gas, and retail find Oracle to be present in their environments via database and edge applications that surround the core SAP instance.
• Seeking information about future roadmap. Most attendees came to have indepth discussions at sessions with key executives and product management staff. Sessions at OAUG were quite lively with in depth discussions among audience members
• Sensing that Fusion Middleware and AIA will play a big role in future solutions. As each Apps Unlimited product consumes more Fusion Middleware, attendees sought to bolster skill sets and general information. The customer base remains open to packaged SOA-based integration and seems willing to pay for this.

The bottom line for users
Customers continue to find value in Open World, despite the size. As Oracle continues to pre package integrations among its acquired products via AIA, expect customers to choose this more cost effective option over expensive integration work conducted by SI's. Customers and partners should bolster Fusion Middleware skill sets as this will be the core requirement to utilize future Oracle acquisitions.

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2007 by R Wang. All rights reserved