Oracles annual OpenWorld conference and exhibition organized at Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco made big headlines in November. Not without reasons. One, 2007 marks the 30th anniversary of Oracle (founded by Bob Miner, Larry Ellison and Ed Oates as Software Development Labs in 1977). Also, as Ellison reminisced on a 30-year flashback tour, it marks the 10th death anniversary of Miner (widely regarded as the heart of Oracle).

More importantly, even by the gargantuan standards of the worlds second largest software company, this years OpenWorld with nearly 43,000 attendees was massive. It probably is the worlds largest event targeted at enterprises and how they can harness the powers of IT to facilitate their business performances.

Not just managing the 43,000 attendees, Oracle also managed to rope in most of the large tech vendors as co-sponsors. Thus, not only did AMD, Dell, Intel, Sun, HP, NetApp, EMC sponsor the show, among others, industry leaders like Hector Ruiz (AMD), Mark Hurd (HP), Michael Dell (Dell), Paul Otellini (Intel) and Jonathan Schwartz (Sun) delivered keynote sessions, besides senior Oracle executives.

The exhibitor list virtually included the entire Whos Who of the tech world. Surprise, surprise, the exhibition hall even included a stall by SAPlooks like the software leaders mutually acknowledge and appreciate each others strengths.

Even by the gargantuan standards of the worlds second largest software company, this years Oracle OpenWorld with nearly 43,000 attendees was massive

A large portion of the Indian presence was Indian employees of Oracle and its sponsor partners in the US, a number of Indian partners and customers of Oracle too turned up. The likes of Infosys, Zensar, TCS, Satyam, Cognizant, Systime had exhibition stalls while large customers like Genpact, Hindalco, Jindal Steel and L&T were present too.

Oracle pronounced its commitment to greener IT also through OpenWorld. To reduce carbon emission, it took small but significant measures like not providing plastic water bottles to every attendee. Instead, every participant was provided an empty bottle of recyclable material and sufficient numbers of water containers put up at the venue. Paper press releases and conference agendas were reduced; from next OpenWorld it would be completely transferred online. One of the participants, Deloitte Consulting, was specifically lauded for putting up a paperless show.

Vertically Challenging!
Not content with just gaining expertise in different applications, Oracle is doing it across multiple verticals through acquisitions.

Speaking at the Oracle Industry Leaders Media Roundtable at the sidelines of Oracle OpenWorld, Rajesh Hukku, general manager and senior VP of Oracles FSGBU and chairman, i-flex hinted that the i-flex brand would probably be subsumed by the stronger Oracle brand in the near future. Though brand change is a marketing decision, ultimately it makes sense to maintain the bigger umbrella brand. However, individual i-flex product brands like Flexcube, Revelus and others would continue to exist, added Hukku.

Oracle currently holds 83% of i-flexs shares and has been consistently trying to acquire the rest in a bid to delist i-flex from the Indian bourses. It would require a little over 90% of shares to do so. The move will help it to integrate i-flex with its business worldwide. Hukku, however, declined to comment on the open offer issue or timing.

Larry Ellison reminiscing on 30 years of Oracle: Oracle was founded by Bob Miner, Larry Ellison, and Ed Ontes as Software Development Labs in 1977

FSGBU Flexes Muscle
Today, Oracles FSGBU is present in 120 countries, including a large number of developed markets. It boasts of marquee clients in first world markets like Allied Irish Bank, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank and UBS amongst others.

In North America too it is particularly strong with its Revelus product for Risk and Compliance; four out of Top 10 banks including Wells Fargo and Wachovia amongst others are its customers.

In line with Oracle president Charles Philips assertion earlier in the day about the importance of the Application Integration Architecture, Hukku agreed that FSGBUs prime mandate at present is to integrate the best-of-breed solutions. While the Oracle Fusion Middleware would provide the horizontal application stack, we are providing applications that incorporate the business processes.

A Tale of Retail
Oracle Retail has come a long way with 1,900 customers, incorporating merchandise and supply chain solutions from Retek; profit optimization solutions from ProfitLogic; enterprise applications; middleware and database technologies from Oracle; store solutions from 360Commerce; human capital management from PeopleSoft; and transportation management and logistics from G-Log.

The continuing depreciation of the US dollar and rising oil prices could soon hit the retail market, even though the impending festival season is almost there starting from Thanksgiving.

The challenge for our solution would be to help retailers better manage their businesses in such a scenario, especially to help them cut corners with more efficient management of their supply chain and other business processes, reminded Angove.

Telecom, Utilities Gain Ground
Bhaskar Gorti, senior VP and general manager, Oracles Communications GBU and Quentin Grady, senior VP and general manager, Oracles Utilities GBU were also present in the interaction.

While Gorti welcomed the boom in telecom sector worldwide contributing to the business, he mapped the differing growth patterns in distinct geographies. In developed markets like North America, where mobile penetration itself is much in excess of 100%, Oracle applications help telcos and related communications companies to manage the complexities created thereof.

While eight of the worlds top ten mobile operators run Oracle applications, in India too 90% of telecom operators including the likes of Bharti are partnering Oracle.

According to Grady, on the other hand, the biggest challenge for Oracle applications in the utilities sector has been to successfully mitigate the various challenges of different deregulations in the last few months. Oracles pursuit for excellence in the utilities sector (here it lagged behind SAP) started with the acquisition of SPL WorldGroup, known for its revenues and operations management expertise in utilities and gained further thrust with the acquisition of Lodestar earlier this year.

Rajneesh De
The author was hosted in San Francisco
rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in

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