Nov 13 2007
Ad hoc Google and Oracle apps
I'm out in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld where there have been a couple of interesting keynotes from Mark Hurd of HP and Paul Ottelini of Intel, and one ongoing right now that delves a bit into products. A Google guy was just up explaining how Google wants to help create 'ad hoc Google' -- little Google widgets on the desktop, or integrating Google into the business desktop and business apps in the way consumers currently find it useful. The ability of Oracle's WebCenter product to integrate new social networking capabilities is also quite interesting, though I asked a panel of UK customers and partners if this was something that appealed to them. The general consensus -- not now. They don't really understand the area, even though they may use boards and blogs themselves. They say 'in a few years maybe'. The only person with a different response was a partner who works with public service organisations -- they work with agencies who work with citizens and want their feedback and a more convenient format for interaction.
To me the interesting announcement of the event is Oracle VM, a virtual machine product that has not created much buzz at all with the crowds, but predictably has with the analysts and press. Again, the customer panel was asked if this was something that intrigued them -- and the answer was, it's interesting, but we are years from using something like this.
The theme of the event so far is certainly consolidation and integration, and perhaps not in the way many would expect -- I'll be writing a bit more about that this Friday in my column and also next week in a general feature on the event. On the other hand CEO Larry Ellison doesn't give his keynote until tomorrow so who knows what else might come up by then? (maybe another acquisition).
As I watched a demo of how you can now drag and drop functionalities you'd like in your own Oracle application and connect them with little lines to indicate what you want to connect with what (eg to draw on a particular database), never needing to code, I'm amazed at how much things have changed in the decade I've written about this company and this industry. I lived with an Oracle programmer for many years and it sure was a LOT simpler back then (or a LOT more complicated I suppose, depending on how you look at things!).
One response so far
Sounds good, looking forward to the feature… but I heard it was all about clips of Star Wars & whether Mark Hurd could beat Larry Ellison at tennis!
“…. connect them with little lines to indicate what you want to connect with what..” !! Never work. First thing that’ll happen is that programmers will invent problems that can’t be solved that way. Hell we’ve got to earn a crust somehow! :-}