ACE Director Day in Washington

As part of the ACE Director Program there are two briefings available each year, one directly before Oracle Open World at HQ and the other before ODTUG Kaleidescope. Each ACE Director is encouraged to attend at least one of these briefings.

Normally one of the comments from a briefing is that there is not enough time for the ACE Directors to discuss ‘all things Oracle’ between themselves, but at the recent ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference in Washington DC, we had plenty of time with several presenting to their peers. It was actually a little disappointing that there was so little Oracle presence. One of the things Oracle does well in the briefings before OOW is give a heads up on some of the products about to be launched, we are all under Non Disclosure. A week after ODTUG, OBIEE11g was launched and I was hoping for a peek at that.

It was a very long day especially for those of us who had a long journey, but there was lots covered. There were roadmap sessions for JDev and a great look at APEX from David Peak. If you are involved in APEX release 4.0 had been available just a few days and it was good for me an interested outsider to see what it now delivers.

What the extra ACE time meant was we could have a lot of discussion. Actual practitioners giving Oracle and each other feedback about the products in the field. How is user adoption, what are the concerns and needs of the customer.One area that came up a lot was licensing. There are always going to be concerns that prices are too high but sometimes it is just how a product is licensed that puts the customers off. ACE Directors have the ear of Oracle and I hope the information taken back into HQ makes someone think. Oracle are often slated in the press for being arrogant and this is a good opportunity for them to reconsider. Virtualisation and SOA licensing models were the main discussion areas.

I spoke about Fusion Apps, a bit daunting as the ACE Director program is almost exclusively technology but more about that in a later post.

My favourite session of the day was the last one. Frans Thamura who talked about his program in Indonesia to teach Java to the majority of university students, ensuring that in the future it wont be restricted to the few who then leave the country for high paid jobs, and that it will also bring work to the country. Unfortunately Frans is very difficult to understand, which is a pity as his English is phenomenally better than my Indonesian, but his slides and enthusiasm made up for it.

Thanks again Vikki and Duncan for a great day.