Oracle Making OpenWorld Waves In SF

Ever since Oracle CEO Larry Ellison boasted about how his software products can make a company virtually “Unbreakable,” the company has been fending off critics who say that there is no such thing.

Now Ellison and a host of his partners and clients have a chance to prove their point at this year’s OpenWorld conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Despite the recent slowdown in business travel, more than 40,000 attendees are expected to attend at this year’s conference.

The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software giant is hosting a slew of high profile speakers and gurus complete with testimonials on how Oracle’s clustering technology (aka Real Application Clusters) lets them use several high-end computers to run huge databases as a backup system in case of a system shutdown.

Compaq Computer chairman and CEO Michael Capellas made his pitch during Monday’s keynote.

“This ‘unbreakable’ cluster architecture is going to be the charter of the IT world,” says Capellas. “The focus in the short term will be macro economics, but we’re also going back to each individual project and looking at how we can improve return on investments.”

Oracle itself is launching its fledgling Partner Network (OPN), which it says will be similar to Oracle’s online developer community, Oracle Technology Network. The OPN is gives Oracle’s partners such as solution integrators, hardware vendors, application service providers (ASPs), system integrators and independent software vendors (ISVs) a resource center to help them move their businesses online.

Also scheduled to make keynote addresses at the OpenWorld conference include Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, who is expected to tote the benefits of Oracle’s systems with J2EE attached.

Intel CEO Craig Barrett is also prepared to praise Oracle releasing the Oracle9i Database developer series
designed for Intel Itanium Architecture.

But not everyone is excited about Oracle’s tidal wave of announcements.

Analysts at Robertson Stephens said on Monday it has cut its earnings per share estimates for Oracle, citing a slowdown in the software market. Robertson thinks Oracle is challenged by market saturation and a product cycle lull in the software market. It also cited the company’s maturing database market, increased competition and management turnover as reasons for the lower estimates.

The conference wraps up December 7.