Re: 10i

Ryan wrote:

> how does the beta test work? I saw something about an announcement in the
> fall. I believe for 8i they announced 9i in the fall 2000, but didnt release
> it until the following Spring...

Depends entirely on the product development folks. This is where a reasonably strong relationship with your sales rep does work .... the rep gets you the paperwork, the pre sales folk help define why you need to be part of the beta test, you sign that you will test features x, y & z because they are important to you and you will provide resources to do proper testing, etc.

Oracle traditionally has selected only a handful of customers to be beta testers. And they have basically set a team of specialists from support and developers available to the beta test. Aside from iTars, they'd have regular con calls, etc. Done right, it's actually pretty intense, but very gratifying.

> how does the release schedule go? It seems that its a good year after the
> initial release until I saw any jobs on the web where they said their shop
> was using 9i. is that normal?

My cynical view:

This one is a coordinated effort between development and marketing. I'd guess that 10.0.1 to 10.0.2/3 are internal only for regression testing, 10.0.3/4 (now happening) and maybe 10.0.4/5 are beta test, 10iR1 is pre announced at an event fairly close to the financial statement and analyst conference (roughly June 15) and planned release date for 10.0.5 or 10.0.6 will be an announced 'quarter' - Q2 being Sept. to Nov., Q3 = Dec to Feb., etc.

Then, of course, is the issue of getting customers to adopt the version. There are plenty of organizations who believe they should still be using version 7 or even 6 (and then there are those who don't understand why they need to upgrade from 5) There are few organizations who understand the need or the pay back for the new features to go through the effort early. More want to 'study the impact' and even more, especially now in this risk adverse era, want someone else to try it out. So general acceptance and migration will take until next year in May, when there will be a year-end fire sale. Received on Thu May 29 2003 - 20:18:54 CDT