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OOW 2008 - Summary

After being on the road for 8 days, I am finally almost home - at my parents in Connecticut for a weekend visit.

OOW was in a word, hectic.  I was afraid that it would actually be a bit worse, as it's hard to fit 43,000 people into a city and not have a suite of the obvious logistical issues.  Oracle did a fairly decent job, given the fixed issues of the sheer size of the conference.  Most of the presentations that I wanted to see were in Moscone West or the Marriott, which were just across from one another, which did make things easier.

The registration system was a little bit less than I expected.  I would have liked to have had an interface that would let me know which presentations were coming up next and/or have an easy search to show me not only that but which presentations were in a specific venue.  Often, I found myself walking out of a meeting and would have liked to sit in on something close, but had no way of knowing aside from walking the halls and hoping to stumble upon something interesting.  Pre-registering was a nice idea, but I did change my mind on a number of things.  It would also have been nice to not have gotten evaluation e-mails for presentations that I did not attend. 

As for the big announcement, ehh...  I guess that I'm tainted by the excitement that companies like Apple create with their announcements, as I can go out and buy (or at least afford) most of the products that are announced.  With the "Database Machine", I just can't see sleeping outside of Redwood Shores so that I could be the first one to have one.  It is an intersting announcement, as Oracle has done this in the past with limited to no success.  Perhaps the second time is a charm...

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