Finally on Day 4 of Openworld (OOW) I'll get some time to provide an update. I have kept up a steady conversation on Twitter, but it's time to provide more information. This is my third OOW in three years as an analyst and the most obvious observation is that the overall messaging and strategy is consistent across the three conferences. Three OOW's ago was just a few months after the launch of the Applications Unlimited program and the first attempt to clarify and define the overall Oracle business strategy. In Monday's opening Keynote by Oracle President Charles Phillips he reenforced the overall messaging: Complete - Open - Integrated. From an applications strategy Complete / Open / Integrated translates to Applications Unlimited or a broad and comprehensive portfolio of industry solutions, SOA enabled (open standards) and integrated through Applications Integration Architecture (AIA). There are several key themes that are continuing across the applications strategy, investment in the horizontal suites, expansion of the vertical applications, development of more Process Integration Packs (PIP's) for integration and moving closer to Fusion Applications. Last year, Anthony Lye (who at that time was responsible for CRM On Demand, but now has responsibility for the whole CRM suite) showed the first of the Fusion Apps, mobile tools for sales people, and it turns out, gave us a glimpse into what has turned into a series of moves to rollout Web 2.0-like functionality into the enterprise. This year, with the announcement of things like Social CRM, a plethora of iPhone Apps ranging from asset management to expense reporting (which included a cool feature to automatically track miles driven based on the iPhone's GPS), Oracle makes a strong move into Enterprise 2.0.
At all OOW's there are a whole list of "announcements" and this year is no exception. One of the biggest announcements was for a new product line called Beehive. Beehive replaces the old Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS) and provides a collaboration platform for internal management of all communication and collaboration channels. The platform provides hooks into a companies existing email or a replacement email system, presence, calendaring, IM, directory, phone, etc. and should pose an interesting alternative to other Unified Communications (UC) offerings on the market. Oracle has used Beehive internally for up to around 1200 employees for close to a year as well as supported several beta / new customer deployments to date. On the partner programs side of house Oracle rolled out it's new Partner portal and a host of Web 2.0 type tools for partner enablement. Another area of interest is the changes rolled out by Oracle's customer support organization around the new My Oracle Support. In its first release MY Oracle Support provides customers with a way to interact with Oracle and maintain current configuration information to enable more proactive and effective support. I learned from Global Support head Juergen Rottler that in a next release to come shortly over the next couple of months Oracle will up the level of support by providing communities around various customer segments. These communities will encourage P2P networking, sharing of best practices and issue resolution through the power of crowds.
Overall OOW this year is up beat and seems to have a lot of energy emanating from partners, customers and employees. The business strategy, growth through acquisition focused around more and better industry vertical solutions is fully baked and continues to drive growth. Oracle continues to invest in all major acquired brands and continues to innovate across those brands. Fusion Applications are coming, we saw, under NDA of course, several demonstrations that were very interesting. And this year, Oracle started on a path of demonstrating that they are Web 2.0 savvy and they are learning how to incorporate those concepts into the enterprise with offerings like Beehive, mobile apps, Social CRM, etc.
At all OOW's there are a whole list of "announcements" and this year is no exception. One of the biggest announcements was for a new product line called Beehive. Beehive replaces the old Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS) and provides a collaboration platform for internal management of all communication and collaboration channels. The platform provides hooks into a companies existing email or a replacement email system, presence, calendaring, IM, directory, phone, etc. and should pose an interesting alternative to other Unified Communications (UC) offerings on the market. Oracle has used Beehive internally for up to around 1200 employees for close to a year as well as supported several beta / new customer deployments to date. On the partner programs side of house Oracle rolled out it's new Partner portal and a host of Web 2.0 type tools for partner enablement. Another area of interest is the changes rolled out by Oracle's customer support organization around the new My Oracle Support. In its first release MY Oracle Support provides customers with a way to interact with Oracle and maintain current configuration information to enable more proactive and effective support. I learned from Global Support head Juergen Rottler that in a next release to come shortly over the next couple of months Oracle will up the level of support by providing communities around various customer segments. These communities will encourage P2P networking, sharing of best practices and issue resolution through the power of crowds.
Overall OOW this year is up beat and seems to have a lot of energy emanating from partners, customers and employees. The business strategy, growth through acquisition focused around more and better industry vertical solutions is fully baked and continues to drive growth. Oracle continues to invest in all major acquired brands and continues to innovate across those brands. Fusion Applications are coming, we saw, under NDA of course, several demonstrations that were very interesting. And this year, Oracle started on a path of demonstrating that they are Web 2.0 savvy and they are learning how to incorporate those concepts into the enterprise with offerings like Beehive, mobile apps, Social CRM, etc.
