Open World Wrapup

Oracle Open World 2009 is now in the history books and I think it was a success both for our business and for Oracle customers in general. Some of the things I liked about Open World this year:

• The Hyperion Pavilion put many of the Hyperion EPM sessions in the same area. It also provided a place for Hyperion oriented vendors to display their wares via kiosks located in the Pavilion itself. As a vendor, we thought our participation was very successful as we were in and around our friends in our business and not lost in the crowd like the Hyperion vendors that chose to display in the larger Expo halls.


• The message from Oracle continues to be that both EPM and Essbase have very important strategic positions within the Oracle application stack. This is great news for everyone in the Hyperion/Essbase ecosystem.


• There seemed to be more Hyperion and Essbase sessions though none of them are technically oriented; Kaleidoscope is the place for technical Hyperion sessions.


• As part of my ODTUG Board of Directors responsibilities, I continued working with the Board of Directors and with the other user groups to provide great educational opportunities for our community.


• The Appreciation Party on Wednesday night rocked with Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey and others.


• It was great seeing the other ACEs and ACE Directors and discussing how we could collaborate in the future. The ACE Dinner was at a restaurant near this really cool Dodecahedron sculpture that was inspirational to me when we designed (and named) our Dodeca product.

Things that could be improved:

• The Essbase sessions were not in the Hyperion pavilion as that product is now sold by the 'Business Intelligence' sales team and not the 'EPM' sales team. Customers typically associate Essbase with Hyperion regardless of the sales rep, so perhaps in the future conference planners can look at it with that approach.

I will be back next year!