DISQUS

"The big move" next door? That's funny!

Well done everyone who made this happen. It looks great!

I hope this means street and sidewalk improvements along the 15th Avenue NW from Market to 85th Street...

We also checked out the club last week. The facility and amenities were nice and new. High ceilings and good ventilation felt good, rubber covered weights were nice, pool with large windows overlooking the canal looked great, and the courts were nice, and the locker rooms were above the local standard in Ballard.

But we also found the size of the cardio/weight room overwhelming. And as mentioned above, we also found the sales staff a bit pushy. We felt like we were getting mixed messages about the services and their pricing.

We find OAC a better, more affordable alternative for a family. Plus LA Fitness had been a good influence on OAC; motivating them to upgrade some amenities of their own (please do the locker rooms and showers next!). We also like The Kids Korner program at OAC, which is well established, better managed and more thought through than childcare at LAF (you can’t just put kids and babies in front of a large screen TV!) . There are also more free classes and family swim options at OAC.

OAC is where we are staying for now.

Al Gore is saving the planet from overheating caused by greedy corporations. What is your excuse for a messy desk?

I think you worry too much.

Software acquisitions can be a tricky business and benefits may not always be obvious. The WSJ ran a nice piece on the subject a while ago:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119551706770298...

Some kind of consolidation was inevitable but only time will show how much customers and users benefit. Oracle is still mainly a technology company, not an application one. The acquisitions brought more focus on applications and users, which is now pretty apparent in R12 (which looks more like Peoplesoft) and overall customer service.

This is the best article I've seen on AppsLab yet :-) Keep up the good work!

Being one of "straight-up consultant" bloggers (as Ann Z called us) I was pleased Oracle extended its invites to us "citizen journalists". I see it as Oracle's attempt to encourage a broader discussion about its products and services than a small circle of professional journalists and analyst could generate.

A waived fee is nice, paid travel expenses would be even nicer. Personally, I will still be in red for the week due to lost consulting revenues. I can't believe we are spending so much time on this issue.

A bigger question for me is what will attendees get from a mega conference like OOW in return for their investment of time and money? How efficient can 1,600 sessions in five days be to "Learn, Experience and Connect"?

Oracle speakers always emphasize that conferences are where Oracle "listens to their customers". It is hardly a two-way discussion. If blogs can provide a constructive feedback and a forum to express opinions to whatever is being presented then the Bloggers at OpenWorld "program" would be a win for everyone. How fair and independent the coverage is is up the blog readers to decide regardless whether Oracle paid for bloggers airfare or not...