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Virtualization Key at Oracle OpenWorld
11/19/2007
This year's Oracle OpenWorld user conference, which wrapped up Nov. 15 in San Francisco, drew an estimated 43,000 attendees for five days of keynotes, technical sessions, vendor exhibits and rock 'n' roll.
Pop singer Billy Joel introduced Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Wednesday, who gave the conference wind-down keynote.
"Do you want me to sing while you play piano?" Ellison quipped as the singer walked off stage. Joel was scheduled to perform for attendees at an OpenWorld concert/party later that night at the Cow Palace, along with Lenny Kravits, Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood.
Larry Ellison (Photo by Mary Grush)
Linux Happenings
Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, Ellison noted that it has been one year since Oracle began offering its own Linux distro. Dubbed "Unbreakable Linux," the open source operating system is based on former partner Red Hat's version.
"We start with Red Hat and fix bugs," Ellison said. Oracle literature notes that more than 1,500 companies have signed up for its Linux discount support program. Oracle's diverse list of new Linux customers includes, among others, Dell, Yahoo, Mitsubishi, IHOP, Timex, the City of Las Vegas, and Stanford University.
But Ellison had a bigger market differentiator to unveil: The year-old Linux distro will now ship with his company's new virtualization product, the Oracle VM.
"This is not the same code as Red Hat," Ellison said. He noted that his announcement was the third time that Oracle VM had been announced at the show.
Oracle Fusion
Ellison also gave his audience a "Fusion update," promising attendees that they would see applications based on Oracle Fusion Middleware in the first half of next year. Oracle's Fusion stack currently bundles a dozen tools and technologies -- everything from an app server to business process analysis tools, an SOA suite to data integration developer tools.
"People ask me, what's a Fusion application anyway," Ellison said. "A Fusion application is built on our industry standard middleware…with a service-oriented architecture. That's the primary characteristic of a Fusion application."
Starting next year, virtually all of the company's new applications will be Fusion applications, Ellison said.
At the end of his presentation, Ellison took questions from the audience for nearly 30 minutes. He fielded questions about his company's acquisition strategy, its competitors and the price of the Fusion Middleware bundle. In answer to a question about who he saw as his company's greatest competitor, Ellison named SAP and "clever startup in the software-as-a-service" business.
Virtualization
Earlier in the week, Oracle President Charles Phillips did the actual unveiling of the Oracle VM during his conference keynote.
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