Monday morning quarterbacking

Back in New York! So what are my after thoughts? First, the size of this event was challenging, the general estimate I heard was 37,000 attendees. That made initial introductions a little like speed dating – “Are you Oracle? PeopleSoft? JD Edwards? Apps? DB?” It made it hard to figure out who to network with. I was thinking about ways to make it easier for us. At the trade show, EMC (the storage and enterprise content management company) was handing out big, numbered pins that people were wearing like license plates. The hook was that somewhere out there was another attendee with the same number. Find them and win something! That made me think that Oracle should put RFI tags in the show badges that would light up when someone with a similar customer profile approached. Or maybe just color code them somehow – keep it simple.

If I didn’t say it already, I’ll say it again – the messages were remarkably consistent:

• Oracle is moving to standards-based platforms and products
• Oracle will provide flexibility and choice between their and other company’s products when architecting business solutions
• Fusion will be best-of-breed from their entire product portfolio
• We’ll support you as long as you want until Fusion, and even after that
• Oracle has a laser focus on the customer’s needs

I have little direct background with Oracle, they were always a commodity component (the standard database layer) in my applications. So I’m taking their claims at face value until proven otherwise. With my arms folded, I guess. I took away some good connections with individuals who are doing the same things, that I can share ideas with. And for all the good messages and rock-star keynotes what I ultimately I saw for the here and now were basic, incremental changes to the HRMS, EPM and Portal applications, and a lot of hesitant customers wondering how this will play out. If they do it well, we could get a lot closer to the kind of systems and usability that we hoped we would get (and usually didn’t) when we purchased PeopleSoft apps. If not, I expect a lot of folks will take them up on their ‘lifetime support’ deal.

Now it’s back to day-to-day efforts. Today it’s getting a plan and support together for rounding up some standalone intranet sites that provide mandatory training and attestations and getting them into a LMS and front-ending it through the portal.

Thursday

Sorry for the delay in posting. Thursday was my last day in San Francisco, and the first day I sat through an entire session. It was “Oracle’s strategic direction for Portal technologies for Peoplesoft applications” run by Rich Manalang. He provided a decent overview of where the direction appears to be heading –

Wednesday

I did get a hot soak in last night and my tired legs feel much better today, and it’s a good thing because today was the day to put on our ties and act like senior managers at the full-day Leader’s Circle session at the Marriott. Breakfast and lunch provided more opportunities to meet some folks and compare notes. I’ve collected a lot of business cards on this trip.