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I’m over in the Moscone West building after registering for Oracle Open World.   We arrived via SFO and rode BART into San Francisco, getting off at the Montgomery Station.

I just attended a meeting with the Communications and Media International Users Group.  It was lightly attended but we got a chance to learn more as there were several speakers from Quest and Oracle there.

Josh Aroner, the Senior Director for Global Communications Marketing, spoke about the origins of his Oracle business unit and their focus on Oracle’s Communications products.  They work with Oracle  customers using Communications Billing and Revenue Management (formerly the Portal product), Service Delivery Platform, and Service Fulfillment software.

He said his group was formed about 3 years ago during the Portal acquisition.  The group’s managers and developers have deep communications industry experience and only focus on the above products.

He noted that currently 96 out of the top 100 Communications companies world-wide use Oracle applications to support their business.

I spoke with him afterward asking what he he felt was Oracle’s most exciting work in the Communication industry niche.  He mentioned several in spite of my question.  First he believes Oracle’s efforts to use Application Integration Architecture to integrate the multiple Oracle communications products into a seamless package are key to meeting the needs of organizations.  Secondly he noted that Oracle is very interested in creating a communications appliance that provided pre-integrated software and hardware in a tuned environment.  His last point was that Oracle will be delivering more support for the Point-Of-Sale area in Communications.

The meeting was managed by Sandy Callahan from Windstream.  She is asking for more organizations to get involved with the CMIUG.  If you or your organization is interested in finding out more, you can send an email to Sandy.

Here is a view of the Moscone West Lobby this afternoon.

Moscone West Lobby OOW 2009