Openworld day minus 3

Its day minus 3, or day +1 depending on your point of view at Openworld 2014.

I’m here a few days early for the Ace Director briefings, where a selection of product managers provide an insight into what is coming in the Oracle world, either at Openworld or in the coming year.

I must admit, I arrived to the briefings somewhat sceptical because a couple of years ago, when I was last at the briefings, the managers seemed very hesitant to share anything with us, generally waving us off with “you’ll need to wait until the conference”, which of course defeats the entire purpose.

However, so far, now that I’m at the conclusion of day 1, I’ve been very impressed. The product managers were very open and honest, happy to inform us of the things they’re very proud of, and also, the things that still need more work, or have not panned out as well they expected. Nice and genuine. And perhaps even more important was that there was a good amount of passion for product this year. People that are excited about their products are much more interesting to listen to.

Today has mainly been about middleware and client, which aren’t my area, but even so, its been good to see whats been happening in that area. Obviously, its all about smart phones and tablets, but there was some very impressive stuff on the UI front. Apologies, but non-disclosure agreements prohibit us from sharing too much content, but a lot of it you’ll be able to see at Openworld, or in the presentations that come later.

Thomas Kurian will be givin us an address shortly – it will be interesting to hear what’s floating his boat (so to speak).

[Disclosure: The Oracle Ace Director program has paid for my travel to Openworld]