San Francisco bathed in Oracle Red

A week’s rest to the body and the brain has given me the fillip to think about Oracle Open World (OOW) after all the excitement including playing the “Wii” at our pavilion. We were all part of the 45,000 people who were there going “ga…ga” over Oracle.

Now it’s time to write a few lines on Oracle Open World 2008 from a perspective that I can. I am not an “Oracle Guru” nor a sales specialist on the “New Oracle Economy” and hence you NEED to recognize the limitations of this article.

Being a first time visitor to the US, the level of activity at Oracle Open World 2008 was so weird to me as if an Obama or McCain was giving a very important presentation.

But then there was nothing less significant going on at the OOW. In fact, the big announcement was that Oracle was going into the hardware business in an alliance with HP. I was stunned at Larry Ellison's love and passion for hardware - given that he runs a software company.

Ellison also managed to get in an attack on cloud computing, I presume to maintain his image as a bit touchy, with the following statement:

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

"We'll make cloud computing announcements. I'm not going to fight this thing. But I don't understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud."

San Francisco Takes Oracle’s Color

The entire Moscone Center in SFO was dominated by people in red – badges, teeshirts and everything at OOW. Every hotel in SFO was booked and reservations were nearly impossible. The crowd turnout was so huge that one entire street (Yerba Buena) was shut down to accommodate people to have their lunch. This was not a trade show but an “EVENT.”
Before I conclude, I want to tell you about the hottest ticket at Oracle Open World - concerts which are UB40, Elvis Costello, Seal and others. There was lots of drink, food and noise. It was a blast!!!