A quiet little announcement was made last week: BEA plans to host an ALUI (formerly Plumtree) and ALBPM (formerly Fuego) user conference! Suprisingly, I don't see any references on BEA's web site, on dev2dev or really anywhere else about it, so I thought I would take a minute to promote the conference here.
Could this be a response to some customer and integrator concerns that there weren't enough AL* breakout sessions at BEA World 2006? Possibly. Could this be the final nail in the coffin that was once called the "Unified Portal Roadmap." I'm not sure.
Regardless, you can bet that I'll be there along with several other folks from bdg. Stayed tuned for more information here about how we'll be involved as an event sponsor, exhibitor and perhaps even as a presenter. I expect that we'll have a lot of fun, share a great deal of what we know about ALUI and learn a great deal more from ALUI customers and other BEA partners.
The full extent of the information that currently exists about this conference can be found at http://www.bea.com/participate. We'll be watching that space for more info and also posting several more times about our specific role in the conference. I suggest you do the same.
One obvious question any customer or partner should ask is: if I'm getting my budget together for 2007 conferences, should I attend BEA World or BEA Participate? If you're a current ALUI or ALBPM customer, it's a no brainer: attend BEA Participate. But what if you're a prospect who is considering a portal or SOA solution from BEA? If you can afford it, I would say attend both!
Comments
Comments are listed in date ascending order (oldest first)
- Now I'm officially confused. Very weird that these are separate unless they're using BEA World as a venue for "technical building blocks" and "Participate" to sell business collaboration / process solutions - that's the only way I can see this.
I have to be careful how I word this, so if the tone comes across in any way negative, well... that's not my intention. IMO I would not attend BEA World again if it's a repeat of last year's.
I loved Odyssey - it was well organized, had _great_ sessions targeted toward user education and productivity, and was all about the customer - sharing best practices, discussing common problems, and engaging in one-on-one w/ engineers and product managers. Sessions were focused on empowering the customer and making sure they were just a bit better at their jobs when they left. It was always worthwhile and our entire team (repeatedly) came away saying "glad we went." Awesome stuff all around and did a lot to let the customers sell the solutions to other customers (always a better way to go).
In attending BEA World last year I got the constant nagging sensation that it was a big (overt) sales conference and not really about the user and how to better utilize tools. ALUI was barely even on the map (which really bothers me). I didn't have the sense that my needs were being addressed as much as in previous years and I really didn't come away with anything "tangible" I could take back to justify the fee. The customer keynotes were cool, but beyond that we struggled to find value.
Doing something with a "Participate" focus thing is a _great_ idea on the part of BEA if it's about targeting the customer and helping understand how to succeed with the tools (and make friends along the way ;). Keywords: using the tools to succeed in business. That, IMO, was always the point to me in attending.
Obi-wan - hear me. This should really be incorporated into BEA World for the benefit of your current and prospective customers. It will really boost the value of BEA World and do something to hammer home the fact that BEA and Plumtree are one company with one comprehensive suite (something Jay Simons' web conference last year did a great job of explaining). Separating things like this ... well... I get it, but it does imply a continued level of separation that customers expressed concern with last year.
That said - and I sincerely hope that didn't come across as negative - I'm excited to see what 2007 brings for the new products. Seeing a bit of what they're cooking up, it's nice to users finally getting past a lot of the geekware bits and into things they can build and use w/o IT bottlenecks. Very cool. Buy three :)
Posted by: ewwhitley on February 12, 2007 at 7:28 AM
- It's not Obi-wan here, but Christine Wan and we're definitely listening! BEA organized Participate to directly address the needs of business and IT users working with ALUI and ALBPM products. This is very much a forum for customers to gather and share best practices, to go deep with product managers and engineers and to hear the latest on new product developments.
And it is an important complement to BEAWorld, providing much richer detail on these two specific product lines and more focus on bringing these specific users together in a forum where they can share experiences and ideas. The announcement last week was just a Save-the-Date. Stayed tuned, you'll see a lot more information to come on the bea.com homepage and bea.com/participate.
Posted by: cwan on February 12, 2007 at 2:09 PM
- Hi, Christine :) Very cool - I'm glad to hear this. We loved the "interactive" and focused nature of the Odyssey sessions. You guys did such a good job on that I think we just kinda got spoiled and expected something on that order for BEA World last year. That's what happens when you make us too happy year after year ;)
Posted by: ewwhitley on February 12, 2007 at 7:51 PM
- I know that many customers I spoke with during and after BEAWorld echoed the same sentiment of being "underwhelmed" simply from being spoiled by Odysseys past. Along those same lines, an Advanced Developer Conference either as part of Particpate, an extension to it or separate from it would be awesome as well. I know that may be hard to do as part of this initial effort but it would be great at some point. We are definitely excited about it and all of this just builds anticipation until May.
Posted by: kurtanderson on February 15, 2007 at 10:05 PM