The day after OpenWorld, Mark Rittman and the BI Management team held a BI Developers Event that was attended by both Oracle Partners from the US and Europe as well as several developers from corporations and universities.  The purpose of the meeting was to start a frank and open discussion between developers and partners with the Oracle teams.  Oracle wanted to share with us their plans and ideas and hear what we had to say about their product(s) and our thoughts on their future.

Before the meeting I have to admit I was skeptical,  over the years we have been associated with many such groups and they did not seem to go very far for very long.   But this meeting was decidedly different!  There is a genuine interest in listening and sharing and a very definate interest in making this work!

Before the meeting we all filled out a survey about how OBIEE was doing as compared to the competition and what the good and bad points were.  The Oracle team was most interested in this survey and were very happy we did not pull very many punches.  They want to hear the good and the bad!

We were all shown the current plans and directions for product and while we are all under NDA I can only say it is definately exciting and in the right direction.  The “give and take” was fantastic and everyone in the room shared freely, which was most refreshing.   In wrapping up Oracle indicated that this would become a more formalized group and the BI Developers Netork would meet on a more frequent basis.

One thing I can share is the fact that Dan and I are working with the team that developed the SampleApp to develop a methodology and infrastructure that will allow for sharing and collaborating additions and modifications to the SampleApp.  More information on this is being finalized now and an example will be presented later this week, with more detailed information coming out in a few weeks.   Stay tuned to this blog for more information.