Response to the Oracle OpenWorld Vote-a-Session has been so enthusiastic, the deadline has been extended a week to Friday, July 10. If you haven’t voted, go to Oracle Mix now.

Here's a quick recap of some top-rated sessions so far:

• Blistering Web Applications with Oracle 11g RAC and In-Memory Database Cache
• Oracle Projects Costing 11i10 for Seamless Capital Costs Accounting
• Provisioning of Clusterware - ASM - RAC with Enterprise Manager
• Transportation Security Agency Advances Shared Services With Oracle Insight
• Delivering a J2EE Stack in the Cloud with Oracle Weblogic Server

If you have a session under consideration, let people know about it. Talk about it on Oracle Mix, send a Twitter update, blog about it, and add links to your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. You can even give us some details in the comments section of this post. But make sure you visit Oracle Mix and participate in the Oracle OpenWorld community.

There are only 100 days until Oracle OpenWorld kicks off at the Moscone Center. As we get closer to the launch of the world's largest event dedicated to helping enterprises harness the power of information, we’ve created a new Web site to showcase ground-breaking Oracle developments.

The Oracle Innovation Showcase site will change every day leading up to October 11, the start of Oracle OpenWorld. Beginning today, we will be highlighting the innovative people, businesses, customers, and partners who have contributed to our 32 years of leadership and success.

Check back each day for conversations with our Innovator of the Day—like Gretchen Alarcon, Vice President of Product Strategy, Oracle Fusion Strategy. We’ll also keep you up-to-date with new launches and announcements in the This Week in Innovation section. Our Innovation Blog will focus on new products and findings, including event updates from the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g launch.

The Innovating Business and Customer Innovations areas feature stories and case studies on how forward-thinking enterprises are using Oracle solutions to drive growth, efficiency, and innovation in specific industries. And the Gaining Business Value from Innovation links detail how Oracle can help manage the complexities of your enterprise IT.

We hope you’ll check in often to the Oracle Innovation Showcase site—after you check back here, of course.

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is here. Today. To coincide with its launch, Oracle is also launching a new Website dedicated to our latest middleware offering. It’s filled with product information and downloads—from white papers and data sheets to podcasts and Webinars. You'll also want to check out the launch Webcast, featuring a discussion by Oracle President Charles Phillips and Oracle Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian.

The focus of this new release is efficiency and productivity—in your IT department and across lines of business. The products being unveiled today center around application grid infrastructure, SOA, security, and portal management. But the fun has only just begun. Stay tuned for more at Oracle OpenWorld.

Wanna rock n’ roll all night? And party every day? Then consider making a reservation at one of the San Francisco hotels that attract powerhouse patrons and their requisite paparazzi. Movie stars, sports stars, and rock stars are just some of the celestial sights you might gaze upon in the City by the Bay.

And though your trip to Oracle OpenWorld 2009 may call for more grounded accommodations at an official Oracle OpenWorld hotel, there are higher-ticket, higher-profile places to stay within earshot of Moscone Center. Here’s just a few:

Phoenix Hotel
A boutique hotel with just 44 rooms, this colorful and contemporary oasis is the frequent favorite of Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Psychedelic Furs—to name but a few. Don’t be surprised if Bowie pops up in the modern sculpture garden, or Sonic Youth splashes you around the pool. World-famous bands are only some of the celebs that rise up at the Phoenix.

Sir Francis Drake Hotel
It’s likely you could bump into Jennifer Aniston in the lobby of the SFD, especially if you arrange it with Tom Sweeney, the Drake’s legendary doorman of more than 30 years. Positioned near the historic Union Square, this majestic touchstone is also home to Harry Denton’s Starlight Room, where visitors often see 49er Hall of Famer Jerry Rice sipping a drink at the bar.

Clift Hotel
While Derek Jeter, Gwen Stefani, Aerosmith, and Sean Penn have all strutted through the lobby of the Clift, the real stars are the artists on display. Exotic and modern, the décor holds treasures from history’s most fascinating collections: Eames chairs, a Salvador Dali coffee table, a Marguerite stool, and a Sawaya sculpture. With famous furniture and glamorous guests, you’ll check into the Clift—but you’ll never check out.

Other Hotels Resources
To find more accommodations in San Francisco, check out these additional links:
• Oracle OpenWorld Hotels Map
• Hotwire.com
• SFTravel.com
• SanFrancisco.com

Had any celebrity encounters while in the City by the Bay for Oracle OpenWorld? Give us the scoop in the comments.

The Oracle OpenWorld 2009 content catalog is live.

You can start perusing most of the 1,800 Oracle OpenWorld sessions available this year, including session titles, abstracts, track info, and confirmed speakers. The catalog will include session info on Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle Develop, and the Primavera Program.

We've also added the ability to tag content this year. That way you—and others who do what you do, or think the way you think—can easily find this year’s don’t-miss sessions.

Remember, you can still have a say on sessions you want to see added to the Oracle OpenWorld agenda. Make sure you cast your vote on Oracle Mix.

Take a few minutes to poke around, and let us know how the Oracle OpenWorld 2009 content catalog works for you.

Linux just makes sense for businesses that are trying to go green and save green through virtualization and commodity hardware. At Oracle OpenWorld and Oracle Develop, we’ve got a full range of sessions on how businesses can efficiently scale their IT with Oracle technology for Linux. Keep an eye out for programs on Oracle Validated Configurations, which offer pretested architectures, and Oracle VM Templates, which can greatly simplify deployment of a fully configured software stack.

If you’re like most of us who are looking for new ways to reduce operational cost without sacrificing performance, you’ll want to read “See Savings with Linux” in the latest issue of Oracle Magazine. Find out how Oracle Enterprise Linux, Oracle Unbreakable Linux Support, and Oracle VM provide a superior solution in an easy-to-launch package—and get a head start on what’s sure to be a hot topic at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld.

Public voting for sessions opened recently on Oracle Mix. You can go there now to vote on the sessions you want to see added to the Oracle OpenWorld agenda.

We tried something similar at last year’s show, and it was a huge success. This year, our content team wanted to ensure that their favorite proposals made it in. After you—our customers, partners, and developers—answered the Call for Papers, they evaluated every single submission, picked their favorites for inclusion, and then put another batch up for public voting. Now you get to choose who gets invited to present.

To get started, go to the session voting page on Oracle Mix. Then, look through the submissions sorted by streams, tracks, title, top vote-getters, or a random selection, and start voting for the ones you want to see in the show. Remember, only registered Oracle Mix members can vote. If you’re not a member yet, sign up now. Then, vote for your favorites.

If your submission is in the running, let everyone in your network know by using the “Share this” section of your paper’s voting page. We want to make sure the best content gets in; the more votes we get, the better the conference will be.

We set up an FAQ about the entire process if you have questions. Since this is only the second time we’ve done something like this for Oracle OpenWorld, we’re looking for your feedback about where we can make improvements. Leave your thoughts here in the comments, or start a discussion on Oracle Mix—after you vote, of course.

The Oracle OpenWorld 2009 content catalog is scheduled to go live in the next ten days. It will give you the first glimpse into most of the 1,800 Oracle OpenWorld sessions available this year, including session titles, abstracts, track info, and confirmed speakers. The catalog will include session info on Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle Develop, and the Primavera Program.

Plus, there will be a very cool new feature: You can tag sessions. That way you—and others who do what you do or think the way you think—will be more likely to find the important sessions you don’t want to miss.

What it won’t include just yet are the sessions you get to vote on beginning tomorrow. Make sure you cast your vote on Oracle Mix.

So watch this space. We’ll let you know when the content catalog goes live.

Since this year's Oracle OpenWorld takes place just prior to Halloween, why not check into the places where specters settled down for a long slumber. Several of San Francisco’s historic hotels offer more thrills than you might expect, so if nothing on our OpenWorld listing of hotels rattles your bones, perhaps you’d prefer a room at one of these haunted mansions:

Hotel Union Square
Legend tells of a guest that liked the Union Square so much, she never checked out! Travellers with “the sixth sense” say a friendly female ghost materializes in Room 207, opens the bathroom door, then closes it. Time, and time again.

The York Hotel (aka Hotel Vertigo)
In the 1920s Prohibition era, the York Hotel led its special guests to an underground speakeasy by way of secret passageways. The now-defunct Empire Plush Room was once a cabaret where spirits gathered for spirits. Many patrons believe they still hear "Lester," the club’s piano player, tinkling a rag-time tune (when, in fact, no piano is there to play).

The Queen Anne Hotel
Pacific Heights is home to a Victorian relic with a fascinating past. Dripping with gothic charm, this Queen still mystifies. Almost every night, her lobby becomes the starting point for flesh-and-blood ghosthunters on the San Francisco Ghost Hunt, where a tour guide ferries brave-hearted guests through a maze of creepy landmarks in pursuit of wandering souls. One touch from an invisible hand, and you’ll be as white as the bedsheets!

Other Hotels Resources
To find more accommodations in San Francisco, check out these additional links:
• Oracle OpenWorld Hotels Map
• Hotwire.com
• SFTravel.com
• SanFrancisco.com

Did your hear a bump in the night during one of your Oracle OpenWorld stays? Let us know about it in the comments.

Last year’s Suggest a Session feature was such a hit, we expanded it this year. For Oracle OpenWorld 2009, we invited our customers, partners, and developers to play a larger role in the content presented by submitting their best ideas, recent findings, or success stories for inclusion in the schedule. Our Call for Papers ended in late April, and our content team has been busy poring over the submissions, adding their favorites to the show’s agenda. Now it’s your chance to weigh in.

We’re gearing up for the session voting to begin Tuesday, June 16, on Oracle Mix. You can browse all the proposed sessions, pick your favorites, and elevate the cream of the crop right into the show’s schedule.

If you submitted a topic during our Call for Papers, start lobbying for it now. Let people in your network know that voting opens soon. Share you topic on Oracle Mix. Update your Twitter status. Mention it on your blog. Post a link to your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. You might even want to leave a comment on this post. Make sure that everyone you know is ready to select your session for the show.

And, just in case you need another reminder, don’t forget to register for the conference before the Early Bird rates end in August. We’re only four months away from the start of the world's largest event dedicated to helping enterprises harness the power of information, so register today.

Business efficiency depends on business decisions, and business decisions depend on current, accurate information and powerful analysis. This interlocking sequence of processes unites the goals of IT and business. That’s why every year attendees from a wider and wider range of job functions converge at Oracle OpenWorld. IT folks are there to learn how to run their systems better and increase performance. Business decision-makers come to find out what technology can do for them. They need to leverage IT investments to accurately monitor business activity and provide front-line employees with the information they need to perform a full range of functions—from conducting more effective marketing campaigns to optimizing inventory to smart budget planning.

Bridging the needs of business and IT directly impacts your company’s ability to move forward. In “Lead with Intelligence,” featured in the most recent issue of Oracle Magazine, you’ll get firsthand insights from both IT and business leaders from a variety of industries on how Oracle data warehousing, business intelligence, and enterprise performance management solutions deliver the information, analysis, and efficiencies your company needs to move ahead of the competition.

And don’t forget, Oracle OpenWorld is the best place to get expert technical advice and hear about the latest industry trends in business intelligence. So take advantage of the Early Bird registration today.

If the economy has put the squeeze on your travel budget, you may need to add an “economy” hotel to your Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Early Bird registration savings. In San Francisco, picking out budget-conscious accommodations doesn’t mean compromising on proximity or panache.

Until August 14, you can take advantage of early bird rates at most of the hotels on the bona-fide Oracle OpenWorld listing of hotels. For adventurous sightseers looking for even deeper discounts, there are a few funkier options still just a stone’s throw from the Moscone Center.

Taylor Hotel
No frills, but close to thrills. Street-smart travelers know the Taylor Hotel is only blocks away from cable cars and shopping at Union Square—and just minutes away from the conference center. Its rates are comparable to a hostel, but there’s free WiFi and cable TV.

The Mosser Hotel
Between Union Square and Moscone sits The Mosser Hotel, a colorful addition to the breathtaking cityscape. Originally known as the Keystone, it was part of the downtown reconstruction after the earthquake of 1906. Today, rockers enjoy the hotel’s on-site recording studio. But there are only 166 rooms, so the guestbook fills up fast.

Waterfront Hotel Oakland
SF hotels aren’t necessarily the coolest way to stay in the Bay. Just across the bridge, the Waterfront Hotel Oakland in historic Jack London Square overlooks the estuary, steps away from where commuters ferry into San Francisco. A business center, fitness gym, swimming pool, and internet access are all included. Plus, this hotel is dog-friendly, so bring along the pooch!

Other Hotels Resources
To find more accommodations in San Francisco, check out these additional links:
• Oracle OpenWorld Hotels Map
• Hotwire.com
• SFTravel.com
• SanFrancisco.com

If you've found some other hidden hotel gems during your previous Oracle OpenWorld visits, share them in the comments.

Every year Oracle OpenWorld and Oracle Develop cover more and more technologies in conference sessions, demos, and workshops. That’s because every time there’s a shift in your company’s business needs, developers need new solutions.

As you know, there’s no shortage of language and technology choices: PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby on Rails, just for starters. Whether you’re making development choices for applications that connect with legacy mainframe systems or new Web 2.0-enabled applications, standards and integration are key.

Check out “United Development,” the cover story in the May/June issue of Oracle Magazine. You’ll get a great introduction to the standards-based tools and development solutions from Oracle that can help you ingrate your business processes. Then come to Oracle OpenWorld to figure out exactly which ones are best suited to your needs and how to make them work for you.

Are you still looking for a reason to take advantage of our Early Bird registration rates—besides the $500 savings? Well, if you register for Oracle OpenWorld 2009 before August 14, 2009, you could end up as Sean Tucker’s wingman (or wing-woman).

Two winners will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a 20-minute joy ride in the Team Oracle biplane with pilot Sean Tucker. As the world’s world's premier air show performer, we’re sure he’s going to give you a ride to remember. But just in case there are some moments where you shut your eyes, the whole thing will be captured on DVD, shot from the video camera mounted inside the plane. You’ll also get to take home Sean’s autograph and a photo of yourself with this aerial aerobatic genius.

Winners will be drawn from those who purchase an Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Full Conference Pass or submit an entry before the Early Bird registration deadline ends. Get the full details and enter today. You may have an unbelievable experience to share at one of the show’s Networking Events.

At the close of Oracle OpenWorld 2008, some of you shared your opinions of the show through our Oracle OpenWorld 2008 Conference Survey. We gave you a little encouragement to participate by offering a $1,000 American Express Travel Gift Certificate to four lucky participants. Our gift certificate winners were:

• Mr. Vilas Ankolekar, Xerox
• Ms. Emily O’Mara, Louisville Water Company
• Mr. Curt Swartzendruber, Alltel
• Ms. Melissa Seger, Visa

We’d like to share some results with you, but be forewarned; we’re going to give you a lot of percentages. Here’s the first: almost 20% of the Full Conference attendees responded to the questionnaire.

While 81% of the responses came from attendees based in North America, we also received feedback from around the world. Those of you in Europe—specifically the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Germany—provided us with the second-highest response rate (10%), and the Asian-Pacific region represented our third largest (3%).

We discovered that most of you came to hear about Oracle’s roadmap and vision for the future. Others wanted to meet Oracle product and services experts, learn tips and tricks for products you’re currently using, or improve your overall technical proficiency and knowledge. A whopping 90% of you said that you were “Satisfied” (63%) or “Very Satisfied” (27%) with the show’s ability to deliver on your objectives. The remaining 10% felt “Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” (8%) or “Dissatisfied” (2%).

You seemed to like the information we provided to you before the show—83% of you thought the Oracle OpenWorld Web site was “Good” (50%) or “Very Good” (33%). The breakdown for our e-mail updates was similarly positive: “Good,” 48% and “Very Good,” 28%.

Some places where it seems we could be doing better is in our direct marketing and—gasp!—this blog. A slight majority, 52% thought our direct marketing was “Good” (39%) or “Very Good” (13%), while 20% of you thought it was “Average.”

For the blog, 11% of you thought it was “Very Good,” 30% thought it was “Good,” and 11% thought it was “Average.” Although a few of you thought it was “Fair” (2%) or “Poor” (1%), the number that concerned us most was the 45% of respondents who marked “Not Applicable.” To us, this means we’re not reaching as much of our target audience as we had hoped. If you have suggestions on how we can change that, please let us know. We want this to be one of the most valuable resources before, during, and after the show for every attendee.

Besides the blog, we provided a number of ways to keep up with show information during the conference. You liked the Content Catalogue: “Good” (48%), “Very Good” (22%). Schedule Builder also fared well: “Good” (37%), “Very Good” (32%). We want to keep you in the loop while you’re at the Moscone Center, so we will continue to make improvements on how we share session details with you.

You gave high marks to the sessions’ content, speakers and presentations. Your highest praise went to the presentations, with 80% of you saying they were “Good” (57%) or “Very Good” (23%). Our speakers received the next-highest rating with 76% of you voting them “Good” (57%) or “Very Good (19%). Your review of our content for sessions was almost as stellar; 57% rated it “Good” and 17% scored it “Very Good.”

When you weren’t involved with the show’s sessions, you seemed to take advantage of the Exhibition Halls and Oracle DEMOgrounds. According to the results, more of you headed to the Exhibition Halls, with 46% voting that they were “Good,” 12% voting “Very Good,” and only 5% reporting “Did not attend.” Our responses indicated that the DEMOgrounds did not get the same amount of foot traffic, however, with 21% of you saying that you “Did not attend.” Of those who did, 42% found it “Good” and 19% thought it was “Very Good.”

The 2008 conference was the first Oracle OpenWorld for nearly half of you (48%). Almost two-thirds of you thought the value of the conference was Good” (47%) or “Very Good (16%). Our attendees tend to be at the forefront of using technology to cut costs, drive innovation, and improve data sharing. That’s why nearly 90% of you expect to be back for Oracle OpenWorld 2009.

In your survey comments, we heard that you appreciated the green initiatives we set up. Another response urged us to make Oracle OpenWorld a week long! Our favorite, though, was, “The only downside to the conference is that I have to wait another 365 days till the next one.” Thankfully, that number has dwindled to 157. Early Bird registration for Oracle OpenWorld 2009 is open now. Tell us what you’re looking forward to at the upcoming show by leaving a comment here.