Notes From TFSOTW - Monday

Several big announcements at OOW today from the Charles Phillips keynote. Let's briefly roll through the big ones:

• Customers can license Oracle database 11g, Enterprise Manager and Fusion Middleware to run in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud environment.
  

• Oracle also announced Secure Backup Cloud Module, a cloud-based backup solution leveraging Amazon's S3 (Simple StorageService).
  

• Oracle Beehive (not sure how I feel about this product name) is a new, secure online workplace for collaborating through social networking tools such as email, calendars and wikis.
  

• Oracle also announced that OOW will include previews of E-Business Suite 12.1. 12.1 includes 9 new products and some functional enhancements as well. However, it seems that 12.1 will not actually be released during OOW.
  

• The 11.1.0.7 release of the database was announced. However, it now appears that the widely-anticipated 11g2 database release will not take occur before 2009.
  

• A new support portal, My Oracle Support, combines the functionality of MetaLink with the Oracle Software Configuration Manager to proved a highly personalized support system. IMHO, this may have been the biggest announcement of the day for apps customers. While My Oracle Support is definitely still a work in progress, the value proposition of a unique support system for each customer based on their specific configuration seems very compelling.
  

• Two new vertical plays, one in insurance and the other in health care.

The best session I attended was "Web 2.0 In The Enterprise". The guys from Oracle AppsLab shared their experiences with introducing social networking inside the Oracle corporate firewall. Very cool stuff. In addition, the competition for the ORCLville Best PowerPoint Slide of OOW08 is over - these guys win hands down. You can catch the winning slide here.

A couple of interesting observations I had throughout the day:

• Oracle's Nadia Bendjedou and IOUC's Debra Lilley gave a great reprisal of "10 Things You Can Do Today To Prepare For Fusion Applications". In this latest update, the list of 10 things has actually grown to 14 things. In addition, the IOUC rolled out the latest iteration of a tool to help customers determine their progress in getting ready for Fusion Applications. Watch the IOUC website for news about the tool.
  

• Nobody here is talking about how the recent rollercoaster ride in the financial markets impacts the Oracle space, especially the effect on customers. It's the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring. This may be contributing to the low-key feeling here sofar, even with the announcements made in today's keynote.
  

• I felt pretty badly for NetApp's Tom Georgens, who hit the stage immediately as Charles Phillips finished his keynote. There was a mass exodus as Georgens began speaking that went on for at least half an hour. Those who headed for the exit missed a well-thought-out analysis on driving value (as in better, faster and cheaper) through recent advances in storage technology.
  

• Lots of posters around the conference about how "X Is Coming" on 9/24/08. No clue about what X is (maybe be something to do with the rumored database announcement?), but it'll be fun to hear what comes out on Wednesday.
  

• I've been peppered with people asking when and where I'm presenting the latest update on JPL's Roadmap to Fusion Applications. Unfortunately, the presentation did not "make the cut" for OOW this year. Given the feedback I've gotten today, I'll post some type of update here within the next few weeks.

• I've been infected with what Steven Chan calls "the halo effect." It's time to buy a new laptop and I've been so impressed with my iPhone that I'm thinking of switching from PC to Mac. There is an Apple store down the street that's been calling my name all week, so my OOW trip may turn out to be expensive indeed.
  

My day also included dinner with a couple of dear friends. The highlight of my day. To be honest, one of the best things about these conferences is seeing friends I wish I could see more often.

My schedule has been packed and the days have been long so far. I'm starting to feel a bit run down. Here's hoping some sleep will recharge the batteries.

Well, that's a summary of a very long, very active day. You can see today's pics here.