Exceedingly nice ink from a column today by one of the IT biz's widest read and often curmudgeonly pundits....


JOHN DVORAK'S SECOND OPINION
Oracle rocks San Francisco
Commentary: Shows how to do an event right
By John C. Dvorak
Last Update: 1:20 AM ET Oct 26, 2006


BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- I didn't ask to find out exactly which Hollywood producer or megastar event manager was behind the scenes of this week's Oracle confab in San Francisco but I have never witnessed anything close to an event this slick. And I can assure you that I have been on the lookout.

With an estimated 45,000 showgoers each spending upwards of $2000 to get in the door this gave the company a little leeway insofar as spending big. The topper was probably the party for 20,000 people in the 22 acres surrounding the Cow Palace highlighted by an Elton John concert.

The party included free flowing wines and gourmet food. At the same time other more exclusive parties were underway. More parties were scheduled for every day of the show.

I could go on and on about the elaborate aspects of this event, dubbed Oracle Open World 2006, including somehow getting Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's racing yacht into the passageway between the North and South Hall or the fact that the entire North Hall was turned into a monstrous theater for the Keynote speches. Or that for the first time The streets between the convention center were closed so huge food tents could be set up to feed the showgoers.

But that's not what the show was about. It was about the price of Oracle Corporation (ORCL: 18.62, -0.27, -1.4%) stock.

Yes there were third-party vendors there and plenty of meetings and educational sessions. But they almost seemed secondary to the glitz.

There was obvious to me that all this showing off and the extravagance was to let people know that Oracle is a big-time player, not a cheap operation like, uh, Microsoft. And it's definitely not like the low budget boys at MySQL.

To me the proof appeared just before the Larry Ellison keynote. The podiums were removed and special podiums were brought in along with Plexiglas side pedestals all of which said NASDAQ. I posted a picture of this for you on the blog.

It's not a bad idea to let people know you on listed on NASDAQ, Heck, maybe they'll buy some shares after the show, who knows?

And if the Ellison speech gets any press they'll catch the NASDAQ logo and perhaps people will make the association and buy the stock. Who knows.

The kinds of cross-promotions by the genius who was behind this event were, simply put, awesome. While Oracle was pocketing the $2,000 plus the fees from exhibitors the showgoers were getting the lunch from Wipro the hot laptop luggage from AMD an umbrella from Fujitsu and on and on.

The press facilities were impeccable with all the open computers anyone would ever need. And there was plenty of hot food for starving reporters.

There is always an air at these tightly focused events. Are people gloomy? Are they upbeat?

From what I could tell the showgoers were actually jacked up. In other words the energy was high and positive. Always a good sign for a company like this.
Never take this sort of observation lightly. I've been going to trade shows like this for 30 years and you can tell how things are going for an industry or a company when a large group gathers like this.

This attitude and energy, although completely subjective, usually gets reflected in the stock price. And when you come to think of it, what is more subjective than perceived value of a stock?

I'd keep an eye on Oracle. I was impressed.