Day 1+2: ACE Director Briefing at Oracle HQ

As you might have read, I am attending the ACED Briefing yesterday and today. So, this basically is the first briefing we have under nearly complete NDA. So we hear a lot (if not all) of the interesting stuff to come during Oracle Open World but we are not allowed to speak, blog or write about it until the announcements were officially made. And if I say that this is about upcoming stuff during the OOW this post is not referring to anything happening in or around the Java space!

Great, because I have time to prepare some detailed blog posts and make sure you can read about anything timely. But bad for the online broadcasting approach I was doing last year. You don't see me complaining here. I am very very happy to finally have a briefing under full NDA. I mean it's a thing of building trust. Even if the ACE Directors are called by Oracle and we are probably closer to some of their stuff than others, we are still externals to them. Anything they share with us preliminary is a little of a victory against an organization many people think of as a big container ship. Hard to get up to speed, to change direction or even stop. Even if I believe that this description isn't true for every part of Oracle it's still a challenge to get all the recent and accurate information or news you need to support customers out there.

Big news around for Oracle; but for Java?
Until now we have seen a lot of improvements and announcements to come up. Some is allready floating around the net and parts of that could be true. Wait a few more days for the complete set of details.Java wasn't a big issue on the list this year. After the emotional speech about it by T.Kurian last year I was expecting to see quite a bit. That didn't happen. Reasons could be, that Oracle is separating J1 a bit more this year and there is another pre-conference briefing held under NDA tomorrow for the Java Leaders. An awesome lineup of names on the list. Not only from the community but also from Oracle. I am really looking forward meeting all those people and catch up with the latest in strategy and news.
As Tim pointed out, it's amazing to see Justin, Vikki and Lillian picking the right names for presenting on the topics we ask for.

"I don’t think many people can pin down Thomas Kurian for an hour this close to Open World. It says a lot about the amount of work Justin, Victoria and Lillian have put in over the last few years, that they can get this level of buy-in for the program.

And OTN is not only doing this for the ACEs. They are also taking care of the Java Community by handling the Java Champions program. So they are busy herding cats during the upcoming exciting week.

Forecast
Today will be my day off. So don't expect any big news around. Tomorrow is the day we start into User Groups Sunday. The Java Leaders Brunch is followed by the GlassFish Community Event and the Oracle ACE Dinner. Follow me on twitter for short bit's and pieces. Looking forward meeting a lot of people in SFO!