I went up to San Francisco yesterday to catch a day of Oracle OpenWorld. Feels like old times. A packed crowd at Moscone Center–something like 38,000 people expected for the show–a packed exhibit hall, packed conference rooms. Not much of the over-wrought, over-the-top marketing that we came to know and love to hate during the hey day, though Larry parked his racing yacht in the exhibit hall.

The buzz on the floor was about ProjectFusion (bringing together all of Oracle’s products, regardless of origin, into a single platform), the Siebel buyout  (they were on a slide down anyway, right? wink and a knowing glance), and where to place bets on the next acquisition. Business Objects?

There was a big showing from the Supply Chain Management sector, the CRM sector, and the entire ecosystem of integrators and professional services providers. It’s a huge base when you see it all together in one place. Especially when you step back to consider it’s all B2B, with no fortification of consumer flash in the mix like you see at other big shows. The bottom line impression I got walking away is that Oracle is just shifting into third gear. I’m not an Oracle cheerleader, but I will pick up some shares.