Open World Wrap Up

My friends on facebook will know I have struggled to get back into the swing of things post Open World. The 26 hour turn around between arriving home and being back on the road was OK, I like being busy but the last week has been harder but expect a complete fest of posts today, I am on a roll!

My headliner for Oracle Open World was obviously Fusion Applications but this year there was actually an awful lot going on.

I think I will quickly cover the other important things and then come back to Fusion Apps in the next post.

Oracle kept the Complete Open and Integrated strap line which is I think quite a testament (although Integrated was the first thing to go Friday when the events people started to strip the Moscone).

The first keynote was Rather like a goodbye speech from
Scott McNeally – reminiscing. This Oracle-Sun keynote very credible and strong support from the audience. I personally hope the acquisition is approved quickly so that both organisations can move on so that the users can see what it means for them. I think it will be a good thing, there is plenty of competition out there and as long as Oracle don't make the mistake of shipping everything on SUN only, customers will continue to have choice and integration. I thought the Java and Solaris components were more important than the tin but then Exadata is now all about the tin so Larry never fails to surprise.

On the left in this photo is my great friend Dan Norris, who has given up his ACE Director status to join Oracle in the Exadata team and he is one excited person who is loving his job. His enthusiasm about what Exadata can do is so obvious. I have no doubt he and the team he is in will be busy with the big $10 million dollar challenge that Larry threw down to IBM users.

Charles and Safra had a joint keynote and Safra made a joke about Open World being called 'Open' as part of the Complete, Open and Integrated message. Luckily they then kept to technology and had a number of demos of where their applications are being integrated to give industry solutions. They talked about how they didn't realise how difficult it was to integrate separate systems until they rationalised Oracle's internal IT a few years ago.

Thomas Kurian talked about the innovation that has come from the development and about the breadth of that innovation. The headliners were FMW 11g and the latest release of the database. He stated every second of every day someone downloads an Oracle Product.

In Larry's main Keynote He talked more about SUN and Exadata, he talked about Next Generation Support.My Oracle Support in the Cloud unified with Oracle Enterprise Manager on premise. Patching proactively based on your configuration. When it arrives, if users adopt it,, this will make a real difference. Then he talked about Fusion Applications. I was very worried I really thought it might get dropped. The first presentation in the slot seemed to go on for longer than I expected, then Larry started his presentation and then introduced Arnold Swarzenegger to the stage who was excellent but when Larry took back the microphone we eventually finished 45 minutes late.

Arnie was fantastic, he played the 'dumb foreigner' made jokes about himself but actually had a very important message, that technology is key to success in so many areas. It was a motivational speech and very funny.

This year Oracle had all the keynotes on a Live Stream which was great especially the day I couldn't leave my hotel room because of the rain. But don't be fooled in thinking it is an alternative to being at Open World. Yes it is great to hear the leaders on the main stage giving you their spin on the message of the day, but the real value is in the smaller sessions and the demo grounds talking to the people in development and anyone you want to meet in the Oracle World is there.

In fact another great friend Mogens comes to open World every year and often does not even enter Moscone. He takes over a local hostelry and meets up with all those he needs to over a beer. This year he held 'Closed World' were each day a speaker from OOW had a more in depth technical opportunity to interact with the greatest Oracle minds around.

But if you weren't able to get to OOW Oracle did interview each keynote speaker and record short videos which are well worth viewing.