Oracle Open World Recap – Part II

For Public Sector (“PS”) customers, the networking continued on Monday night at the only purely PS focused event at Open World, the annual Oracle Public Sector Reception at Jillian’s. This Industry event is where PS customers could meet with Oracle PS experts for a night of food, drink, and sports, in a casual environment while watching Monday Night Football on several big screen TV’s in a fun sports atmosphere.  This year’s event was heavily attended relative to past years; I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout..  The pool tables were packed with lines 2-3 people deep at each table so some additional games would have helped alleviate the overflow on the pool tables.  This was a good problem to have considering that the majority of attendees were customers and not Oracle employees. I would suggest to Jillian’s that they add foosball and air hockey to their inventory of games next year to help alleviate the wait for a pool table.  I would specifically suggest these two games based on their popularity at the “Game Zone” lounge in the Exhibit Hall. Both of these games were extremely popular and were only preceded in popularity by “Dance Dance Revolution” and the ever popular “Pop a Shot!”  The only thing not included in the carnival atmosphere of the Exhibit halls and game lounge was a carnival barker, a palm reader, candied applies, and stuffed animals. I left having won 3 out of 5 air hockey games but without any prizes or cotton candy for my efforts.  I did, however, have a wonderful time and I encourage Oracle to keep up that tradition at future Open Worlds especially for those attendees that bring children. The networking continued throughout the day on Tuesday as attendees had various SIGs, Industry focused sessions, and JUGs to participate in, along with the  traditional General Sessions, and Executive Sessions which gave attendees the chance to “get best practices and visionary guidance from Oracle partners and customers. “ On Monday Executive Solution Sessions featured executives from PWC, NetApp, and CapGemin. Al sessions took place in the Novellus Theater. This year for the first time OOW featured a neighborhood specifically for the developer community called the “Zone.” The Zone – “The Mason Street Tent, between Ellis and O’Farrell streets, housed various attendee experiences, including areas for roundtable discussions, conference news broadcasting, and a lounge. This was a much needed addition and hopefully it will be continued at future sessions. Except for the aforementioned events the remainder of OOW proceeded normally. The keynotes this year were interesting with some very intriguing announcements (See Open World Recap Part III) and some new product releases (See Open World Recap Part IV) which I will discuss later. The keynote presentation that I enjoyed the most was Larry’s “Rocking the Tech World” on Wednesday which I will discuss next month in part III of my recap. As intriguing and informative as the keynotes were the highlight of the 2010 OOW surprisingly, was not Larry, but the Oracle appreciation event on Treasure Island—“`a magical island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay”-- which included The Black Eyed Peas, Don Henley, the Steve Miller Band, and Montgomery Gentry. I never attended the customer appreciation event in the past so I don’t have a point of reference to compare this year’s event to. I can, however, say that I was extremely impressed with this event from the logistics of getting in/out of the venue to the sound quality, videos, and Pyrotechnics, of the performances.  When you “mix in tons of hands-on entertainment options and an endless supply of food and drink, you will [quickly] know why customers and partners call this the one networking event no one can miss. “ Treasure Island is transformed into a boardwalk replica with rides and carnival games buffeted on three sides by water and breathtaking views of Sausalito, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and downtown San Francisco.  Depending on where you are on the fairgrounds you are always treated to a spectacular view even when in the grand-stands watching a spectacular performance. I attended the LoadSpring VIP Reception at the View Lounge before leaving for the appreciation event so I arrived about 30 mins before the Black Eyed Peas were scheduled to come on stage. The ride to Treasure Island was as smooth and flawless as a Swiss engineered timepiece. The bus was orderly and on time and briskly carried me along a designated path (route 5) picking up passengers as we went.  We quickly completed our route and turned north across the bridge bringing us to Treasure Island. We quickly exited the bus and entered the fairgrounds without halting stride or being obstructed by long lines and ineffective security which normally mar events like this. I entered the arena and immediately ascended the stairs of the makeshift theatre to get an unobstructed view of the stage. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long before pyrotechnics lit up the stage in a pulsating display of kaleidoscopic color and sound.  A HD screen on either side of the stage began to pulsate and flash images of the Black Eyed Peas as the crowd erupted and cheered “just like Holyfield had just one the fight,” as the BEPs came on stage to raucous applause and cheers.  A similar, albeit less euphoric scene, had played out much earlier in the day during Larry’s “Rocking the Tech World” presentation.