Oracle OpenWorld_Ellison

7. Keep An Open Mind, Part I: Oracle unveiled an Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux, and the company claims the kernel delivers a 75 percent performance gain over Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The VAR Guy is taking a closer look at the claims now.

6. Keep An Open Mind, Part II: When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, some skeptics wondered if Oracle would bury Sun’s MySQL open source database. But during OpenWorld, Chief Architect Edward Screven announced a MySQL  5.5 release candidate plus some other Oracle enhancements to MySQL. The VAR Guy will share more thoughts on the MySQL moves later today.

5. SaaS-Ready Applications: Oracle announced its Oracle Fusion Applications. Take a closer look and the company claims the applications are “SaaS-ready.” You may recall that Oracle offers service provider licensing (i.e., pay-as-you-go options) for VARs that want to run Oracle applications and databases in the cloud.

4. Stealing A Little Bit of Thunder?: Despite their feud over former HP CEO Mark Hurd joining Oracle, both HP and Oracle downplayed the competitive battle on Sunday. However, HP’s board may be trying to steal a little bit of Oracle OpenWorld’s thunder. One example: HP apparently is nearing the end of its CEO search, and the search apparently favors internal HP candidates, according to The Wall Street Journal.

3. Hiding the Hatchet: No, HP and Oracle haven’t buried the hatchet. But during her OpenWorld keynote, HP Executive VP Ann Livermore described mutual Oracle and HP interests — 140,000 customers and 12,000 HP services people focused on Oracle. Still, Livermore and Oracle CEO Ellison did describe competing product views.

2. Welcome to the (Cloud) Machine: Ellison sidestepped the feud with HP and unveiled the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, an integrated hardware and software system “engineered, tested and tuned by Oracle to run Java and non-Java applications with extreme performance.” Oracle claims the machine provides “a complete cloud application infrastructure.”

1. Let’s Go to the Video Tape: If you missed Oracle Channel Chief Judson Althoff and the OPN Forum Live conference on Sunday, you can watch the replay here. During the event, Oracle announced a Diamond tier to the OPN Specialized partner program. Plus, Oracle announced roughly 22 Titan Award winners, which recognizes Oracle’s top North American partners. Also, the Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized Global Awards were presented. The VAR Guy is trying to track down a list of honorees.

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