Oracle Open World keynote sets a dull tone

I can’t recall a major industry conference first day keynote where within 10 minutes I was getting bored and within 30 I was out the door - at least of the main hall. Such was the degree to which Oracle OpenWorld’s opening keynote captured my attention.

HP’s Ann Livermore gave what must count as the dullest infomercial I have ever witnessed. Twenty minutes in and I was gone. She might as well have recorded it and the beamed it out to the audience. The event wasn’t helped by the fact that the Moscone Center San Francisco WiFi can’t cope with thousands of people trying to get out onto the Internet at the same time. Colleague David Dobrin who was sitting next to me had a decent signal. I couldn’t connect. He kindly lent me his 3G iPad.

Fortunately, Frank Scavo had found the media room with wired ethernet connections. I headed off in that direction just in time to watch yet another infomercial before Larry Ellison, CEO Oracle took to the stage. I don’t know what possessed him to spend a good 45 minutes rambling on about the technical ins and outs of the Exalogic Elastic Cloud Compute box. box. As one person put it: “If a sales guy chose this as his presentation, Larry would’ve fired him.” It was excruciating.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/howlett/oracle-openworld-keynote-sets-a-dull-tone/2451