ACE Alumni

Today, I asked Oracle to move me from Oracle ACE Director status to Oracle ACE Alumni status.  There are a number of reasons why I decided to change status.  When I started answering questions on internet forums years ago, I did it to share what I had learned in order to help others.  The same goes for this blog which I originally started so that I could give better and more complete answers to questions on the forums.

After the Hyperion acquisition by Oracle, I was contacted by Oracle who asked if I would be interested in becoming an "Oracle ACE".  It was an honor.  But over time, things have changed.  As more people found out about the ACE program, more people wanted to become an ACE.  If you have ever monitored the OTN Essbase and Smart View forums, they have become cluttered with copy and paste posts from people obviously trying to increase their points.  As the ACE program grew, it also become harder for the OTN team to manage and now require a formal activity reporting - a time report if you will - to track contributions to the community.  As I am already extremely pressed for time, I decided that tracking my contributions to the community - in exchange for a free pass to Open World, just didn't make sense.

All of that being said, just because I have moved to Oracle ACE Alumni status doesn't mean that I will stop contributing to the community.  My company will continue to provide free downloads and support for the Next Generation (Essbase) Outline Extractor and the Outline Viewer along with free downloads of Drillbridge Community Edition.  And maybe, just maybe, I will finally have time to write some new blog posts (maybe even some posts on some new Dodeca features inspired by our work with Oracle Analytics Cloud / Essbase Cloud!)