It’s All in the Cooking – 11g Drops Today

Last week I was at Oracle HQ for our annual Identity Management Customer Advisory Board meeting. It was an absolutely jam-packed two and a half days. I cannot tell you how great it was to spend time with our customers, those that have been with us for a while, and those that just joined the CAB via the Sun acquisition. We had some great customer presentations as they shared insight with the group and threw out some meaty topics for us to chew on. Some of our customers are doing some really innovative things, and I am hoping to be able to share some of that with you in upcoming posts (once I get clearance). I gave a talk on our plans as they relate to SaaS applications and the Cloud, and I’m quite pleased with the positive feedback I’ve been getting. And the Iron Chef competition at the Payne Mansion was a rousing success, despite the team I was on coming in last (I did establish myself as a champion cheese grater though).

But the best part of the CAB was the response that our customers gave us for the upcoming Oracle Identity Management 11g release. No one is in a better position to judge whether we are delivering on what our customers need than the organizations that have been using our products for years now. We got positive affirmation that makes me believe that the focus we put on usability, manageability, identity services architecture and suite integration is going to pay off. The demo sessions were packed and warmly received, even running long because of all the discussions that ensued. And you know you did a good job when customers start to come up with new ideas that play off your new features instead of critiquing those features themselves.

Well, today is launch day, and finally the entire identity industry can see what we have been cooking and judge for themselves. To get started, you can check out the launch webcast today (Wednesday, July 21) at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET. Our VP for development of Identity Management products, Amit Jasuja, will be providing a detailed introduction to this release, so register now. There will be a whole bunch of information being put up on oracle.com/identity. And if you are going to be at Burton Catalyst in San Diego next week, then you can stop by the Oracle hospitality suite (Wednesday, July 28 from 6-9 pm in room Aqua 308) and see demos of all the new products.

I can assure you that we build IdM products much better than we cook miniature ham croquettes minus the ham (you had to be there).