Posts Tagged ‘Collaborate’


Collaborate 2009 in the Rear View Mirror

May 7th, 2009 by Robert McMillen • No Comments »

Today is the final day of the OAUG Collaborate 2009 conference in Orlando and here are some final thoughts as I look back at the last 5 days.

First, Orlando is a great location for the conference.  Great weather, easy access and plenty of restaurants and lodging.

The attendance was down but I can only speculate how much.  Someone said about 40% but that’s a guess.  It was clear that organizations are not spending money as freely to send individuals.

The quality of the sessions I attended was excellent.  In almost all of them I walked away with new information and something I wanted to explore even more.  The presenters were readily available for questions after their presentations.  And there was a good mix of non-Oracle and Oracle presenters.

The exhibitors were here in full force and there didn’t seem to be a drop-off in their participation.

The opportunity to network and meet other attendees was great and getting to hear others experiences with various applications/products was also valuable.

Oracle’s products and product strategy continue to be impressive even in a down market.  Fusion Applications, EBS 12.1, Fusion Middleware 11g with Weblogic, JDeveloper 11g, …  all of these are impressive products.

Collaborate seems to be a better value for me than Open World because there is more end-user interaction and the ability to have more discussions about the good and the bad of working with Oracle products and organization.  The independence of OAUG makes a difference.

Lastly, the efforts of OAUG will save Oracle customers lots of money because of the decision to not charge the additional 10% for licenses on those products moving to Extended Support in the next year (Database 10g, EBS 11i and others). That alone should save organizations enough to send at least one person to the next Collaborate.

Next year, Collaborate 2010 will be in Las Vegas.  In the coming 12 months there’s much to look forward to with new product releases, like the Fusion Applications, making their entrance.  Stay tuned and make your plans for next year!

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As the SUN begins to set

April 20th, 2009 by Robert McMillen • 1 Comment »

In a move that caught most of the industry by surprise, Oracle has swooped in and purchased SUN Microsystems after IBM left them at the proverbial altar.

SUN has been struggling for some time after seeing it’s industry-leading role decline.  The commoditization of hardware and SUN’s slow move from proprietary (and expensive) processors were a contributor to its loss of leadership.  In spite of this, their leading role in software has helped them remain a player.  Solaris, Java and a host of other software products have made them a thought-leader while contributing less to the bottom-line.

Oracle, meanwhile, has become a juggernaut and been on a major buying spree over the last several years.  Noteworthy acquisitions include BEA, PeopleSoft, and Siebel.  Now they’ve added SUN to their list and the big questions are on the table.

What will the landscape look like after the merger of these two organizations?  How will the market be impacted?  Did IBM miss a major opportunity and how will that affect them?  What products from both organizations will survive?  What will happen to Java and the many other open-source products that SUN has supported?

One thing that Oracle has historically done well and continues to improve is their process of merging new products into their existing line.  They have demonstrated a growing competence in selecting the best products from new acquisitions and quickly pruning out those existing products that are not market leaders.  Oracle has also proceeded with caution in making decisions that negatively affect stakeholders when acquiring new companies and products.  For example, they introduced “Applications Unlimited” to reduce fears that PeopleSoft and Siebel users would be required to switch to Oracle’s in-house E-Business Suite in a forced move.

Similar fears will arise with this latest move.  Obvious concerns are how this acquisition will impact JAVA, Solaris and many of the Open Source products that SUN was involved with.

Perhaps the greatest concern will surround the SUN hardware business.  Oracle has had limited experience in acting as a hardware vendor.  Their recent announcement of the  “HP Oracle Database Machine” is one of the few examples.  Looking closely at that product it is clear that Oracle leverages the hardware as a commodity and generates significant revenues from the software that is used.  In typical configurations the hardware is a very low percentage of the overall pricing.

Oracle has several choices with the hardware.  No doubt they will continue to support the hardware business that SUN has already.  However this purchase will probably slow sales of new hardware dramatically since buyers are unsure of what is going to happen next.  Oracle could chose to spin off the hardware to a separate company or use it as they have with HP to package with their profitable software.

At a deeper level, SUN has signficant hardware design experience which could also be leveraged for special-use hardware products assuming that those key people are retained.

There are still many questions that will need to be answered over the next year.  My hope is that  Oracle will handle this acquisition better than its critics will expect and that the end result will be better for the overall market than if IBM had made the purchase.

With Collaborate 2009 (in Orlando) just weeks away, this acquisition will no doubt be THE conversation topic at the gathering.

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Collaborate or Die

April 21st, 2008 by Robert McMillen • No Comments »

We just returned from a great week in Denver where Collaborate 2008 was held. This annual gathering of the IOUG, OAUG and Quest user groups was a great opportunity for learning and networking.

I chose to attend a lot of sessions on E-Business Suite R12 upgrades and integration. There was a lot of discussion about problems with R12 upgrades and issues with the Payables application. Oracle has upgraded internally and said it took them 3 days to upgrade their 12-13TB database. We also heard that about 200 organizations have upgraded to R12 since it was released 16 months ago.

Big announcement was that Premier Support for E-Business Suite 11i (R10.5.2) will be extended from November 2009 to November 2010. This announcement will take pressure off of many organizations and give them more time to plan their upgrade to R12. Find out more at HERE.

On the integration side there was lots of emphasis on the Application Integration Architecture (AIA) and its value to both R11 and R12 customers. No new announcements were made on that topic but it is clear that Oracle believes AIA and the associated Foundation Pack will help many customers kick-start their use of the Fusion SOA Suite using these new tools.

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