Oracle OpenWorld Blog

Powerful New Oracle Products Deliver Speed, Performance, Flexibility, and Security

By Richard Levitt.

Wednesday's keynote featured Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, and S. Gopalakrishnan, InfoSys Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director—plus a couple surprise guests.

The capacity audience was greeted by rock n' roll and animated graphics showing the building blocks of IT as they assembled and reassembled themselves into the infinite combinations of a modern technology stack.

First, Oracle President Charles Phillips introduced founder of the Who and Appreciation Event headliner Roger Daltrey.

Then S. Gopalakrishnan spoke of trends that define successful business: simplification, adaptivity, moving from value chains to value webs, smarter organizations, and strategic partnering.

"This is the time to focus on innovation," he said.

Then Larry Ellison came on stage and taught a master class in enterprise data management, starting with an update on Oracle Enterprise Linux , and continuing with a gleeful description of Oracle Exadata V2, the new Sun Oracle collaboration that has broken all records for data warehousing and OLTP performance.

After extolling the many virtues of Oracle's latest innovation, Ellison pointedly backed his claim of unmatchable performance. "If anyone wants to make $10 million, prove me wrong," he offered, pointing out that the performance of Oracle Exadata V2 comes at about one-quarter the cost of a comparable IBM system.

His presentation was punctuated by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came onstage and spoke about technology and its economic and social importance. "It's the bridge to solving problems in the 21st century," he said. The Governor then invited attendees to stay after the event and enjoy California. Half joking he added, "We need the revenue."

Ellison then continued with a demo of a new product support tool, based on the merged power of MyOracle Support, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and a collaborative, global configuration database. "It's proactive, unified, and personalized," he said.

Finally he offered a brief summary of Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle's next generation BI-based suite of software and tools. "We understand that our customers have an enormous investment in existing applications, and we're going to continue to enhance those applications for the next decade and beyond," said Ellison. "We not only maintain the software of today, but we build the software of tomorrow, so you can move, if you want to, when you want to."

Did you see the keynote? Share your thoughts here.