Oracle Opens Beta For 11g Database

Last night, Oracle co-prez Charles Phillips spoke briefly about 11g. Monday morning the beta news was announced by Chuck Rozwat, executive vice president of server technologies at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

For all Oracle's talk about its myriad business applications and Fusion middleware, the bulk of customers and partners at the annual event came to Oracle because of its database, so database news is of paramount importance to them.

The current Oracle 10g Release 2 has been out for more than a year.

Other (non-database) product news Monday included a new version of Oracle's SOA Suite. SOA Suite 10g Release 3 eases installation, has an updated enterprise services bus (ESB)< better workflow and security features, the company said Monday.

Components include the company's BPEL Process Manager, Business Activity Monitoring, Business Rules, JDeveloper and Web Services manager.

It's available now for $50,000 per CPU when bought with Oracle's own App Server Enterprise Edition. Otherwise it's $65,000 per CPU.

One integrator attending Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco said the company needs to do a better job melding SOA capabilities into all of its software, and that the company has a way to go for that.

Another reseller partner said the SOA Suite and Oracle's BI Suite pose a great opportunity for his business. "If you sell the database at $40K, then SOA for $50K and then something else for $20K, that adds up for us," he noted.

Also in today's product news is a free downloadable Java development tool. Oracle Developer Depot, part of the company's Fusion middleware stable, is a library of sample applications that can be downloaded, used and reused. The goal is an easy "click, deploy, run" scenario, said Steven Harris, vice president of Oracle's Java Platform Group, in a statement.

The show has had its share of celebs going into day two. Last night, Oracle co-presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz threatened a one-on-one basketball shoot off on stage, before Catz brought on a ringer, Jason Richardson of the Golden State Warriers. Oracle last week paid millions for the naming rights of the Oakland Arena. Phillips pointed out the Warriers have started the season at 4-0. If the numbers were reversed, would Richardson have been invited?

Day two kicked off with a keynote by AMD chief Hector Ruiz. For those who didn't see the irony, Ruiz noted that attendees should note which chip company exec talked last year and compare and contrast. Answer: Last year's chip geek was Intel's Paul Otellini.

Even more interesting was Hector's special guest star, none other than Michael Dell. Mr. Dell dropped by for a few quick words during the Ruiz keynote and will be back later Monday for his own. For those of you with some memory left, Dell long eschewed AMD (and Linux for that matter) but those days are over.

Michael may be feeling the sting of his company's recent woes. While Oracle billed a Michael Dell Q&A. He usually has one, but not this year. Instead, various Dell minions will sit in.

As for Dell getting chummier with AMD, it's good to see the company being pragmatic.

But then again, it has to be.

This blog was updated Monday afternoon with more on Dell and AMD.