I took over a hundred pictures at this event. Here are a few of my favorites from Monday and Tuesday.
- The IBM Booth #1111 Moscone South
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I spent most of my time at the booth in the exhibition area. It was a huge booth, covering various software offerings in the front, and servers and storage systems in the back. Here I am next to the "IBM Watson" simulator, allowing people to play Jeopardy! game against Watson.
In the front was "EoS" which stands for "Exchanging Opinions for Solutions" -- an interactive screen developed by Somnio that allows people to enter questions and opinions and get crowd-sourced answers from people following the Twitter stream. The EoS was connected to the [IBM Mobile App] so people could follow the conversation.
- IBM Customer Appreciation Events
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On Monday evening we had some customer appreciation events. First was for IBM customers of "JD Edwards", which runs on "IBM i" operating system on POWER servers. This was an elegant affair at the [Weinstein Gallery] surrounded by works of art by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. One customer expressed concern that Oracle would functionally stabilize JD Edwards "World" software and force everyone to move over to "Enterprise One". I told him that I had seen the roadmap for "World" and there are three healthy releases planned for its future. He should have nothing to worry about. IBM and Oracle will work together to make sure our mutual customers get the solutions they need.
Later, we went to the "Infusion" bar for another "IBM appreciation" event with a live band. Here's a Polaroid photo taken of me in the crowd.
- Titan Gala Award Reception
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On Tuesday night, Oracle gave out awards in 29 categories. IBM won three this year. I took a photo with the ladies from Beach Blanket Babylon, and a mermaid! Joining me to celebrate the awards were IBMers Carolann Kohler, Boyd Fenton, Sue Haad, and Susan Adomovich.
This is my first time attending Oracle OpenWorld, so naively I asked why there were only 29 categories and not an even 30. The IBMers joked that the 30th might as well have been "Best Server/Storage Platform for Integer Math" which Larry Ellison conceded that IBM's POWER 795 server wins over Oracle's new SPARC T4 Supercluster. As Larry said during his keynote "We still have some work to do to beat IBM!"
The event was held at the San Francisco City Hall, I got to walk on the red carpet, with lavish food and drink. I was even given a hand-rolled cigar! Thank you Oracle! We are proud to be your "Diamond Partner" helping our mutual customers get the most out of our solutions.
- The "Booth Babes" Controversy
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At the EMC booth, these three lovely ladies, Jennifer, Tamara and Manuela, were just a few of the dozen so-called booth babes EMC hired from a local agency. Attendees with technical questions were directed to the EMC guys in the back of the booth, behind the wall.
IBM stopped using "booth babes" a long while ago. At IBM Booth #1111, we had a healthy balance of real men and women executives, technical experts, and support staff at the IBM booth.
Other IT vendors are starting to follow suit. Back in 2009, fellow blogger Stephen Foskett wrote
[(Don’t) Make Your Startup Look Stupid With Booth Babes And Chotchkies!], Denise Dubie, from NetworkWorld, discussed the debate in her post
[Booth babes don't wear glasses]. Wendy Shuchart weighs explains
[Why the VMworld 2011 booth babes are bad for IT]. Matt Simmons takes this a step further, suggesting an "Eliminate Booth Babes" campaign in his post
[Seriously, Stop with the Booth Babes].
A guy from EMC came over to our booth later to explain that EMC is at two other events this same week, and their technical staff is spread thin. EMC is a small company, and skilled technical people are in short supply. We get it. Not every IT vendor has an army of experts in every category like IBM.
I want to thank the IBM-Oracle Alliance team, especially Nancy Spurry and Carolann Kohler for having me involved in these events.