October 12th, 2009
What we may/may not hear @ Oracle Open World this week
Watch for movement on these matters
Last night, Oracle’s annual mega event, Oracle Open World, opened. This event draws some 37,000 people to San Francisco to hear, see and speak all things Oracle. With the keynotes starting in mere minutes, I thought I’d offer up my thoughts on what may or may not get covered at this year’s shindig. With my choice of discussion topics, I’m also offering up my probabilities for the show’s content.
1) The itty-bitty rebuttal – Last week, Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison, apparently referred to Salesforce.com’s CRM application as an itty-bitty application. That comment is especially interesting as Salesforce.com’s CEO, Marc Benioff, is scheduled to speak at Oracle Open World. My prediction is that Larry stays quiet on the matter (probability 0.5) while Marc will definitely speak up on the subject (probability 0.9).
2) Is SaaS (software as a service) for Real? – Recently, Larry took a couple of shots at the cloud and the SaaS applications on it. That’s interesting as the day after I read that missive, I saw that Oracle was ramping up its cloud offerings for the middle-market.
Probability that Larry back pedals on the cloud issue (0.8).
Probability that this point is clarified at Oracle Open World (0.5).
3) Where will the cuts come next? – Oracle reported that it will continue to incur restructuring costs to the tune of $300 million. The company also intends to pump a record level of investment into product develop of the Sun products it hopes to acquire. That begs the question: If overall costs are to decrease but the Sun product line gets a R&D infusion, then won’t the other applications, databases, tools, etc. feel the investment squeeze?
Probability that Oracle discusses this at Oracle Open World (0.01).
4) mySQL, mySQL – wherefore art thou mySQL? – mySQL is a database management software product offered by Sun. It is an inexpensive product built with open source code. It is also a sticking point with the European Union and is holding up Oracle’s acquisition of Sun.
Probability of Sun being discussed at Oracle Open World (0.8)
Probability of mySQL being discussed at Oracle Open World (0.5)
5) Fusion - We should expect an avalanche of information regarding this major application investment program. Even competitors to Oracle are bracing themselves for this. In fact, Fusion should be the most discussed topic at the show. The real interesting aspect re: Fusion will be the customer and prospect reaction to the announcements.
Probability of Fusion taking the show by storm(0.7)
Probability of Fusion being as big as Oracle hopes it will be (0.3)
Well, let’s see what happens the next couple of days. This could be one interesting Open World.
This blog explores the intersection set between services and technology. If it impacts either space, it will be covered here. Brian Sommer is a former Accenture partner. He did an 18-year tour of duty there and ran three small practice units (Finance Center of Excellence, HR Center of Excellence and Software Intelligence). He’s sold service projects in almost every continent and remains just as current on both services and technology today as ever before. Brian is currently CEO of TechVentive, a strategy consultancy servicing technology providers, and a research analyst with Vital Analysis. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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