OOW Saturday - Ari Kaplan IOUG
Saturday:
I arrived at Oracle OpenWorld on Saturday, for the “Extreme Weekend” events. Saturday was the first day of SIGS from the various major user groups. Entering Moscone West at about 1pm you could see that the registration lines were literally out the door. This was an omen of just how busy the week will be – with Oracle having acquired Peoplesoft and just this week Siebel (plus 4 other companies this year such as Oblix and Retek). OpenWorld 2005 is expected to be the largest to date.
I was pleased to see a write-up of the IOUG rebranding on the cover of the Oracle daily. For those who are unaware, IOUG surveyed the Oracle community and received a tremendous response – over 16,000 people filled out a lengthy survey. We used this feedback to help better define our user group and how it fits within the greater Oracle community. So, IOUG rebranded as the Independent Oracle User Group, for the complete technology and database professional. We still support the international community (our members and RUGs are from dozens of countries). The new name represents the independent, user-driven focus of the IOUG.
First was the ODTUG Tools SIG. Some of the ODTUG BOD was on a panel. They discussed that Oracle is going to enhance JDeveloper by adding an ER diagrammer for free, with functionality like Visio. Also HTML DB is an excellent environment for web development – similar to Microsoft Access in the ease of development.
IOUG, OAUG, ODTUG, and Quest comprise the User Group Pavilion was hopping. I stayed for a while and talked with several users. The user that traveled the farthest was an IOUG member from South Australia – he subscribes to SELECT Journal.
Since I am from Chicago, I also attended the ICAB Midwest regional user group. ICAB focuses on Peoplesoft. The Midwest group is focused on Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other nearby states. It was nice to see new groups such as ICAB join the user community.
September 21st, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Thanks for providing such terrific information! I wasn’t able to make the show this year, but am getting a good sense of what’s going on.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:06 am
Have read all your journal entries and have found them extremely informative. I like your “where the future begins” attitude - with input and change! I find it mind boggling how Oracle has grown from its initial years when you worked directly for Oracle. Independent Oracle Users Group is a great name! Please differentiate the upcoming conferences. Thought one was scheduled for Las Vegas.