In the halls of Oracle OpenWorld '08
Until you have been to Oracle OpenWorld, it is hard to envision how large the 5-day customer-focused conference has become.
About 43,000 people will attend this year, up from 40,000 last year. Eighteen hundred technical and software-strategy sessions fill six hotels and the three halls of the Moscone Center, again an increase from 2007.
Oracle says that 450 corporate partners also attend, either exhibiting or providing experts for some of the sessions.
It is hard to imagine such a sprawling event could be personal enough to be useful. But attendees say they learn to navigate the chaos, and sift and sort to find what they need.
“It’s so overwhelming,” says Tom Amadeo, assistant vice president of Sesame Workshop, the producers of Sesame Street. “You have to plan.”
Amadeo says he catches up on the new software Oracle has available. It is easy to lose track. The database giant has gobbled up 50 acquisitions in almost four years.
Vinceet Naif, a technical leader at NetApp, said he too looks for information on the software roadmap and design issues. “If you are focused” the show is useful, he said. “You have to know what you want.”
And if not? Weel, “it’s still just a lot of excess information to me,” said one young attendee who wanted to be known as Hai from a San Francisco branding company.
