Oracle OpenWorld 2007 - Day 0

10:32 - at Moscone South Room 102

This is the absolutely final demopod staff orientation meeting. Usual staff - reminders of no eating at booth, no email, no Internet surfing, make sure we scan people badges... No leather pants!? Now that's something new that I haven't heard before.

11:20 - at Marriotts Golden Gate Room

Now we'll find out whether our "Extreme Data Center Makeover" was successful. Turn on all the boxes. Good, everything comes on. Why is box #6 not responding? Oh, the network port is not lighting up. We got a bad port. Tried another port and it worked. Wait, some boxes are connecting to box #9 but not #1. What is going on? Routing table not set up properly on box #1. How did we miss this one? Anyway, look like all the servers are working, but some of the PCs are not picking up IP address from DHCP servers. Network admins called. Let's hope they fix it.

15:29 - at Moscone West Oracle Speaker Lounge

We are now less than 2 hours away from Larry/Safra's Sunday Night Keynote.
Just checked out the demopods and they are good to go.

18:50 - at Moscone North Keynote Hall

Well, the keynote was interesting. Every company has a human side story behind it, and Oracle is of no exception. Larry recounted many of the war stories of the early days, from how he convinced Bob Miner to start Software Development Labs, which later became Oracle, to selling relational database software to the CIA (before development got started of course), to getting his house foreclosed on when they were running out of money and had to cut his salary, to his first encounter with financial statements. The rather chaotic really made me wonder how the company became the success of what it is today. Amazing.

Got to head out to grab a bite to eat, go home, and get ready for tomorrow. It's showtime!
CNET also has a blog entry on the keynote - http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9814858-7.html?tag=head