Oracle OpenWorld 2007

I had the opportunity to be sent to the Oracle OpenWorld 2007 held at Pudong International Convention Centre in Shanghai. I've been to many seminars like Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle. By far, sad to say, I still prefer the Sun Tech Days which I went last year.

Main reasons:

1. Speakers speak good English
2. Slides and presentation mostly matches
3. Ambiance and food is good. :)

For this Oracle OpenWorld 2007 held in Shanghai, I do not like it for the following reasons:

1. Speakers sometimes speak English, sometimes speak Chinese.
2. Slides are almost always in Chinese (especially for the Japanese speakers), but the speakers mostly speak English
3. It was 40 degrees in Shanghai, and most of the keynotes start late.
   

Judging from the price of the seminars, Sun Tech Days still beats OracleWorld.

However, in terms of knowledge, I think I learned more at OracleWorld. Basically, over the 3 days of talks, I've understood quite a fair bit of what's Oracle roadmap ahead, and the suite of products it is pushing out, and most importantly, the reason why they are doing it. It's always nice to learn from the big guys.

Below is the picture of their main entrance:


Below is the picture on the day of the registration (I was early):


Below is the picture of their keynote (looks cool right?):


The main purpose of this seminar though, was to promote their Oracle 11g database, WebCentre and Fusion Middleware. They also proved to the world that the companies they bought over are alive and well, and new versions are out.

Previously, they have also released quite a few applications free like JDeveloper, SQLDeveloper, and 10g Express. I was quite impressed with their SOA suite and that they are pushing all their applications (Siebel, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards) into 1 common platform, which is their Fusion Middleware.

They have some "eye candy" too, like integrating Second Life with their Oracle Store. Their integration with Hitachi RFID systems was quite interesting too. Couldn't really take a picture because there were too many people. :)

The weird thing I observed happening in this seminar though, is that sometimes people will strike up a conversation with you in the keynote session. Trying to drum up business I guess, but it's quite irritating, and distracting.


It might be because it's held in China, that the slides are in Chinese. However, have you tried reading Chinese, and listening to English at the same time. Well... Don't try. I ended up listening to one side only.

I'll try to write later on where I went in Shanghai during the days I was there.