On the database front, we’ll be looking for any hints about when Oracle Database 12c will be released. The next version of the Oracle Database has been in beta version for a while now. Earlier this year Ellison said that Oracle Database 12c might be released in December or January. Then a statement Sept. 4 regarding Oracle’s support for Intel Itanium-based platforms said that “version 12c of the Oracle database” is “due out in early 2013.” At the same time, there are rumblings that, at the very least, details about 12c could be released at Oracle OpenWorld, which starts Sept. 30. On a side note, if you’re beta testing 12c, email me at mfontecchio@techtarget.com. If you’re not, email me anyway and give me your wish list for 12c.

On the applications front, we will hopefully hear some details on the uptake of Fusion Applications. The next generation of Oracle applications has been generally available for almost a year now, and so Oracle is expected to talk about how successful they have been.

Finally on the hardware side, we will likely hear more about Oracle’s integrated systems. Oracle executives said at the last earnings call that hardware will start to become a “growth story” in this fiscal year, so we’ll see how that has done. We’ll expect some possible talk about the Oracle Database Appliance, which was geared toward medium-sized businesses looking for an integrated database device. There may also be some hints or details about Oracle’s future hardware plans, whether that be the next generation of Exadata or some other new integrated hardware platform.

It’s an intriguing concept and one that has been around for a while in the IT world. IBM has been offering it on mainframes for more than a decade. With the Oracle Database Appliance, customers can scale from 2 to 24 processor cores. An Oracle employee told me today that Oracle will allow a customer to scale down once, and only once. As he put it, Oracle doesn’t want customers “playing games” with the sub-capacity feature, scaling up and down frequently during workload peaks and lulls to save money.

The Oracle Database Appliance is the first product where Oracle has offered sub-capacity pricing. The question then becomes: Should Oracle offer it elsewhere?

It’s a good question. Many very large organizations have unlimited license agreements with Oracle. They pay one (big) cost, and get all the licenses they need. So sub-capacity licensing doesn’t interest them. But in the midmarket, the small-to-medium (SMB) space, sub-capacity pricing could play well. And that is a market that Oracle hasn’t captured as much as other vendors, and where the Oracle Database Appliance plays.

The bottom line is that sub-capacity pricing is technically possible on any Oracle platform. The question remains whether Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wants to make that feature available on a wide range of platforms. On the plus side, offering it on other platforms might be a way for Oracle to grab more SMB customers. On the downside, it could mean not getting as much licensing revenue from those customers that they would otherwise get.