I’ve made it to San Francisco, and can report the conference is in full swing.
First Impressions
The attendance this year is significantly higher than it was when I last attended in 2004. This is not new news to anyone following the conference, but I’ve noted the impact in a few areas:
- We’re now eating lunch outside (well, sort of). Granted, serving lunch for 40,000 plus people is an accomplishment in and of itself, where to seat them all during the lunch hours can also prove to be a logistical nightmare. Fortunately, Oracle has some obvious influence with the city of San Francisco as the solution was to block off an entire street in between Moscone North and South and construct a giant lunch tent, complete with stage for live lunch entertainment.
- The free wireless access works some of the time. There are numerous hot spots in the convention halls, but at times they were luke warm at best. It was difficult or impossible to authenticate during peak break times.
- The weather in San Francisco on Monday was fantastic! Although I needed a coat in the morning, I was sweating in it by the afternoon.
- Congestion around some of the lecture halls was so severe, they stopped scanning badges for entry as it was delaying the start of the presentation. This didn’t happen everywhere. Mostly it occurred in areas where they had messaging centers and other kiosks (coffee, snacks, etc.) set up. Queues of session “hopefulls” who couldn’t register for a session form outside the door while those who are registered try to get in. I’ll be one of these people myself as I’m still trying to get into Nadia’s session on preparing for Fusion Applications.
The Road to Release 12
Speaking of new releases of the e-Business Suite, I sat in on Cliff Godwin’s presentation regarding technology directions for the EBS on Monday. His presentation centered around both R12 and the future Fusion Applications. In hopes of gaining more information regarding Fusion later today, I’ll comment on a few key takeaways regarding release 12:
R12 will focus on providing a superior ownership experience, additional Business Intelligence capabilities, and service enablement. The user interface will get an overhaul under the current “SWAN” initiative, and will use the native sun client doing away with JInitiator. Changes in the technology stack include using 10g R3 with OC4J at the application server tier, and 10gR2 for the database.
XML Publisher will be further integrated into the EBS and will include over 800 templates, many of which will also be translated into over 30 languages. Additional improvements include a bursting engine, and the ability to consolidate XML reports from multiple sources into a single publishable document.
From a system management perspective, additional packs will become available for Oracle Enterprise Manager, replacing the older grid control for 11i. Management packs will also be available for PeopleSoft and Siebel, as well as the EBS.
All things considered, Monday was a long but productive day. I’m looking forward to Tuesday’s sessions, and meeting up with other Oracle Bloggers tonight at the Annual Blogger’s Meetup, organized by Mark Rittman. Stay tuned – more Oracle Open World 2006 news to follow.
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Richard Byrom is the founder and author of OracleAppsBlog, which documents the daily experiences and learnings of Oracle Applications Consultants and Implementors. He is also an Oracle Applications Consultant, Speaker and Author.
