Re: IOUW vs Oracle... vs ???

A little history is in order, I think (someone correct me, if I get some facts wrong):

IOUW started (in 1977, I believe) as a small informal get together by Oracle's small coterie of users of the first commercial version. It was held for several years at Oracle Headquarters. Through the 1987 conference in Washington (the first one I attended), it was entirely owned, financed, and operated by Oracle Corp. No wonder Oracle feels that it has a propriatary interest in the event.

However, under the leadership of IOUG president, Dave Kreines (sp?), by 1988, the IOUG felt that a change was due. The troubles associated with the introduction of Oracle version 6 had convinced the IOUG board of a need to be a stronger voice for users of the product. Many attendees at IOUW expressed a distaste for the growing amount of Oracle marketing hype, and vaporware being promoted at the conference.

With Oracle's cooperation, the IOUG began to slowly take over the management of the conference. Once again, Dave Kreines, now the conference chairman, led the way. This also required basic changes to the structure of IOUG, which led to things like the separate continental arms of the users group, hence IOUG-Americas, and the advent of individual and corporate memberships (with dues) in IOUG. It used to be that IOUG was a loose association of the various regional user groups, join your local, and you were automatically a member.

The transfer of ownership of IOUW from Oracle to the user group was final in 1995. The Philadelphia conference was ENTIRELY run by IOUG- A. As I said before, participation by Oracle was still substancial, important to the conference's success, and I'm sure much appreciated. Received on Fri Jan 26 1996 - 13:43:30 CST