I was unable to make it to Oracle OpenWorld for the first time since Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft.  Before that, I had attended seven previous PeopleSoft Connect conferences.  While I was disappointed that I missed the event, I had some amazing opportunities for Knowledge Infusion to work with many new conferences and organization's such as Mercer's Global Outsourcing Summit (a world-class event) and IDC Canada "Human Capital Count" event, another brilliant and informative event.

While I was unable to attend any product briefings or sessions at OpenWorld, I was able to pickup through the blogosphere and press some of the happenings during the week.   A few highlights that I think are important for all:

• The Oracle announcement of Oracle Enterprise (PeopleSoft) 9.1 and some of the initial feedback is extremely exciting.  The user interface and enhanced Talent Management components should be "just what the Dr ordered" for customers that have already have huge investments in the platform.
• Oracle's continued focus on Talent Management and Analytics continues to show the HR space that for an ERP vendor, it is for real and working diligently to ensure that it continues to "be very competitive and a force to be reckoned with" when it comes to the HR technology vendors in the ERP space.
• Oracle's continued discussion of Fusion middleware should be a continued exciting discussion to watch for all Oracle/PeopleSoft customers continue to struggle with legacy interfaces that are in desperate need of upgrades to true "web services" based integrations.

The other major announcement was around Beehive, Oracle's Enterprise 2.0 collaborative toolkit.  I have seen many blogs and clips about people saying "nothing new, same old thing compared to Twitter and Facebook".  One of the things that people forget is that these tools ARE NOT in most enterprises today and organizations are struggling with how to use them.  Oracle's foray into this space is very exciting as one of the way's enterprises will adopt Web 2.0 tools is if they are tightly integrated with their daily business applications.  Continue to watch Oracle use similar Beehive technology in it's future HR/HCM/Talent Management products which will continue to appeal to the enterprise base.

Oracle continues to prove that its combination of database innovation, support of the true transactional HR function, its efforts to enhance its Talent Management solutions, a focus on analytics as well now Enterprise 2.0 capabilities continues to reinforce Oracle's direction today and long-term potential going forward.

I personally look forward to seeing some of the new solutions at HR Technology Conference in Chicago in a few weeks.

Another infusion of knowledge..