Stronger Together
A growing Ecuadorian user group builds ties with its
Latin American neighbors.
Paola Pullas knows how to do a lot with a little. With the
nearest Oracle corporate office in
neighboring Colombia and user
group members spread across
a geographically diverse nation,
Pullas, president of the Ecuador
Oracle Users Group (ECUOUG), is
helping to forge a single Oracle user
group that can attract top speakers
and make its voice heard.
ECUOUG represents more
than 200 corporate members in
the country’s major industries,
including mining, construction,
and telecommunications, as
well as agricultural production
of crops such as bananas, cocoa,
and flowers. “We have three main telecommunications companies in Ecuador, and all
of them are members of our group,” says
Pullas. “But there are many smaller businesses, such as in our flower industry, that
are coming to us.”
Paola Pullas, President, Ecuador Oracle Users Group (ECUOUG)
ACROSS THE STACK
The group holds as many as 12 meetings a year, mostly in Quito, Ecuador’s
capital city, and mostly on subjects such as
Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server,
and Oracle JDeveloper. But the group is
expanding to support other parts of the
technology stack. “We’ve found that lots of
midsize companies in Ecuador use [Oracle’s]
JD Edwards, and many of our members
use [Oracle’s] PeopleSoft and Siebel,” says
Pullas. “We are in the process of launching
an applications user group within ECUOUG.”
PABLO CORRAL VEGA/GETTY IMAGES
With Oracle’s acquisition of Sun,
ECUOUG is also reaching out to Sun users
through a new Sun special interest group
and is working with an existing Java user
group to fold it into ECUOUG. “As a small
country, we want to bring all Oracle users,
Sun, applications, Java, and tech under one
roof,” says Pullas.
Jeff Erickson
( jeffrey.x.erickson@
oracle.com) is a senior
editor with Oracle
Publishing.
NEXT STEPS
BANDING TOGE THER
On the heels of a successful Oracle
Open World conference in São Paulo, Brazil,
in 2009, the Latin American user group
community began working together to keep
the momentum going. User group leaders
organized a Latin American user group
council, with each member country providing
a board member. Pullas is the board member
FOLLOW ECUOUG on Twitter
twitter.com/Oracle_Ecuador
KEEP UP with ECUOUG on its blog
ecuoug.org
SEARCH for Paola Pullas on Oracle Mix
mix.oracle.com
WATCH the Up Close interview with
Paola Pullas
