I'm not a fan of large industry trade shows. Maybe it's my attention deficit disorder, but after a few hours, I'm usually bushed and looking for something else to do. And there's only so much SWAG and mindless pitches you can listen to before you start going bonkers.
The most recent Oracle Open World is a good counterexample. The Oracle people have built this event into a premier inidustry happening, and less of a vendor shindig. I thought I'd add a couple of thoughts to the general mix.
Oracle Unbreakable Linux
I have to agree with Larry Ellison on this one ... it's capitalism in action. Enterprise customers want enterprise support for their environments, and Linux is no exception. If Oracle can offer a better support product than the other guys, and do it for less money, everyone wins (almost!).
I think a couple of things are worth pointing out, though. First, it'll take a while to see whether the value proposition offered will be the value proposition delivered. Not that Oracle is fully capable of doing this, but it takes a while to characterize just how good (or not good) support is. I think lots of people will be watching this one.
Second, I don't think the party will be conceptually limited to Oracle. If you think a bit, other Linux-centric vendors are capable of playing this game, including (but not limited to) Dell, HP, Sun, SAP, maybe even IBM.
Just saw a news flash that Microsoft will be doing something similar with Novell's SuSe. Anyone for open source databases? Just kidding ...
How Vendors Present Themselves -- Style Vs. Substance
OK, it's no secret. A part of EMC's business competes with NetApp. And we're very different companies on multiple levels. So I'm always curious to compare and contrast how each of us approach a show like OOW.
Well, EMC went in with a full technology portfolio. We had maybe 12-15 technology demonstrations in the booth; everything from replication using intelligent networks (RecoverPoint, used to be Kashya), archiving, content management, real-time discovery of infrastructure using Smarts, etc. etc. Something for everyone, but there was a whole lot going on -- maybe too much.
By comparison, NetApp went in with a very simple, clean look. Their booth was all about concepts, like "leadership", "simplicity" and so on. Very little technical or product content, but a nice, slick look.
Who's to say which is better? I can see pros and cons to both. I guess if you think IT is easy (or should be), NetApp has the right formula. But if you think IT is hard (and getting harder), maybe the EMC approach is better. Time will tell.
There were other vendors there with a "less is more" approach. As an example, the Dell booth was very conceptual in nature -- very little product and tech.
Keynotes are a related topic. Just so you know, vendors pay big bucks for the privilege of getting on stage with a keynote. The NetApp presentation was pretty slick and well-rehearsed, but they spent a signficant amount of time sticking it to EMC.
Not that I resent it (hey, y'all paid for it, do what you want), but it just seems like a poor use of time, and somewhat uninteresting from the audience perspective to see a senior exec at an IT company thrash another company publicly.
Another area was how do you handle breakout sessions? This is where vendors sponsor a topical area that turns into a thinly-veiled pitch for their offering or solution. Nothing wrong with that, we did a few.
But what we found far more useful was setting up individual workshops with specific customers who were in attendance. We brought a fleet of EMC Oracle experts, the customer brought their people, and we'd sit in a room for two hours to work out practical solutions to real problems they were facing. We loved it, and the customers told us that they loved it as well. We're gonna do more of that going forward. Very cool, and good way to spend the time.
The Oracle Stack and EMC
It's pretty clear that Oracle is building their stack: database, middleware, applications, OS, and with the Stellant acquisition, now content management (ouch!). But I think there's still a ton of opportunity for vendors like EMC to add value in more and interesting ways:
- we've always been strong on the storage side -- and Oracle environments use a LOT of storage
- ILM applied to Oracle makes sense -- how do you classify and tier the information in an Oracle environment?
- 10g RAC integration to make sure customers can quickly deploy integrated server/storage stacks with a minimum of fuss and predictable results
- EMC's entire backup and replication portfolio for Oracle: Legato, SRDF, RecoverPoint, et. al. as applied to specific Oracle situations
- our Smarts capabilities nicely complement a gap they have in managing end-to-end service levels, especially components outside the Oracle stack
- with the RSA acquisition, we can bring our strengths in identy management to the Oracle security model
- our Documentum ECM works well with Oracle, allowing customers to work with both Oracle-based applications for events and transactions, and integrate with rich content, workflow and collaboration
- and of course the virtualization portfolio makes sense: VMware, RainFinity, Invista
And, of course, we've had the Oracle/EMC Joint Support Facility in place for a while, plus there's the joint services offerings we offer with Oracle Consulting, and the fact that Oracle runs all their production databases on EMC, and so on ...
We'll see how their ECM acquisition (Stellant) plays out ... that's part of the fun of working in the alliance business ... all of your friends want to compete with you!
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