20 Scenes From Oracle OpenWorld

Signs on the side of the Metreon near the Moscone Convention Center provide a not-so-subtle hint that Oracle OpenWorld is in San Francisco. According to Oracle, the 43,000 show attendees booked 76,150 hotel room nights and spent $100 million while in the Bay Area.

Howard Street in front of the Moscone became part of the Oracle OpenWorld "campus," including these facilities for serving lunch to the thousands of attendees. Traffic police at the intersection of Howard and Fourth streets had their hands full managing the foot traffic between the main convention facilities and the Moscone West.

Political power couple James Carville and Mary Matalin opened the conference Sunday night with their political observations and often-acerbic comments about the presidential candidates -- and each other. For example, Matalin said: "It's a historical time, and for once I agree with Barack Obama. He says he's so relaxed because he has faith in the American people. I have faith in the American people too, so I don't think Obama should be so relaxed."

Carville delivered his own set of observations on the political scene and the upcoming election. "There's going to be the biggest generational divide in this election we've ever seen. If young people turn out in the numbers I suspect they will, it's going to change the whole nature of our politics. Obama's going to get 60 to 65 percent of the 18-to-29-year-old voters."

Oracle president Charles Phillips delivered the Monday keynote speech, reviewing Oracle's product development efforts through the last year and looking ahead at the product strategy for the next year when the company will spend more than $3 billion on research and development. The company now has 85,000 employees -- one-third of whom came to the company through acquisitions.

Chuck Rozwat, unveiled Beehive, Oracle's new communications and collaboration software that combines instant messaging, e-mail, calendar applications and team workspace capabilities in a single package. Rozwat, Oracle executive vice president of product development, said Beehive has been under development at Oracle for three years. But some conference attendees thought it was an off product area for Oracle to move into.

Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of Fusion Middleware, gave a keynote speech Tuesday around the theme of information integration that extolled the ability of Oracle's middleware products to work seamlessly together. Kurian's speech, like other keynotes, was broadcast live throughout the Moscone.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini, in a speech Tuesday, pledged that the next-generation Core i7 desktop/workstation microprocessors would go into production before the end of the year. Otellini's keynote theme was "time" and how Intel is helping businesses use it more effectively. On that note, he talked up software-hardware collaborations with Oracle, as well the chip giant's hand in innovations on Wall Street, in the health care industry and with DreamWorks SKG.

Foot traffic was steady on the exhibition show floor where some 400 Oracle technology and service partners -- and even a couple of competitors -- were making their pitch. Some used interesting props to entice show-goers: This '81 DeLorean, a car best known for its appearance in the film "Back to the Future," was being shown off by Zanett, a provider of IT consulting services.

Several vendors, including Intel and Pillar Data Systems, used the tiny Smart car as a prop on the show floor. Storage technology vendor Pillar was giving this one away through a drawing. Pillar, by the way, is fully funded by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

Wells Fargo was showing off its Wells Fargo Adapter software that integrates Oracle E-Business Suite and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications with Wells Fargo services for automating payment processing and other financial tasks. This stagecoach in the company's booth is a bit older than the DeLorean, but it gets better gas mileage.

FlexField Express, a supplier of software for making changes to chart of accounts in Oracle E-Business Suite financial applications, had a contortionist perform to make the point about the product's flexibility. Here the contortionist folded himself into a small box, jealously watched by people who pull every muscle in their body reaching into a refrigerator.

Scattered around the Moscone Conference Center were stations where attendees could generate power by riding a stationary bike. Fifteen minutes of pedaling generates enough power to use a laptop for an hour or a cell phone for five hours. The bikes seemed to get very little use, however. More popular were the comfy beanbag chairs throughout the Moscone for people who were definitely NOT exercising.

By 2010, nearly a third of all CEOs and CIOS will realize that their data centers aren't going to meet their future demands, and even today, more than half have realized they need to modernize their data centers, according to Ann Livermore, executive vice president of the Technology Solutions Group at Hewlett Packard, in a keynote address Wednesday. She extolled the joint efforts between HP and Oracle to build data center components that are equipped to handle the exponentially rising amount of digital content that businesses are expected to generate.

With photos of his multimillion dollar trimaran racing sailboat, BMW Oracle Racing, flashing on the screen, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison opened his Wednesday keynote by joking: "In my primary job I've been trying to win the America's Cup for the last seven or eight years." He said the Trimaran's hydrofoil design was a case of "radical, extreme engineering" resulting from "out-of-the-box" thinking.

Segueing from the idea of radical engineering thinking, Ellison unveiled the HP Oracle Database Machine, the first hardware product in the software giant's repertoire. Ellison said the Oracle Database Machine, jointly developed with HP, would provide a ten-fold performance improvement over data warehouses using current Oracle technology.

Oracle threw a customer appreciation party on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay that included food, carnival rides, and musical performances by the Gin Blossoms, the Psychadelic Furs, Alan Jackson, Seal, UB40 and Elvis Costello and the Imposters.

Performing on an outside stage, the Psychedelic Furs entertained the crowd with such hits as Pretty In Pink, Love My Way, President Gas, Heaven and Heartbeat. The Gin Blossoms played at the same time on the indoor stage.

Performing on an outdoor stage, Seal and his band played for more than 90 minutes, singing such hits as Crazy, My Vision and Kiss From A Rose. Country music star Alan Jackson played at the same time on the indoor stage.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters wrapped up the party. UB40 played their reggae hits on the indoor stage.