OSBC Coming to a Close

Well, OSBC is coming to a close.  The exhibit hall is closed and all packed up and the final sessions are underway.  What a great networking event.  Don't expect to get leads at this show, but if you want to hobnob with the "players" in open source, you have to be at this show.  Speaking of which, this is a picture from the Open Source Database Panel held yesterday. 

From left to right in the picture:  Moderator Matt Aslett, Analyst for the 451 Group, Zack Urlocker, from MySQL, Andy Astor, CEO of EnterpriseDB, Ken Jacobs from Oracle and Roger Burkhardt from Ingres. 

The panel was okay in my opinion.  Zack did an excellent job as always and Andy held his own, as well.  I thought Ken tried to be an open source guy, but the veil was thin and he was in an awkward position.  Oracle did not belong on that panel at all.  Roger was a walking sales pitch and his act got old quickly.  All in all, it was entertaining.  But, 50 minutes was too short and the whole thing was a little too marketing, even for me.

We had a nice looking booth (if I do say so myself) and I am including  a picture of that as well.  I had a lot of conversations with other marketing executives from open source companies and the discussions were the same over and over.  Lead generation and lead nurturing were always hot topics.  How to turn free usage into paying customers.  After all, this was the Open Source Business Conference.  We are in business to make money. 

That is all for now.  I have a lot more to talk about, but don't have the time.