back to article Schwarzenegger rescues Ellison keynote from jaws of banality

If anybody's going to do any upstaging it's Larry Ellison, as both Michael Dell and Billy Joel discovered during their respective OpenWorld turns this year and last. Guest are welcome to make a splash at Oracle's event - but not too welcome. Usually, they serve as a warm up act or foil to Ellison and his giggly wit. For once …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Terminator

    "The AE-35 unit is going to go 100 percent failure within 72 hours"

    "When we have all this configuration data we are going to data mine that database. We haven't got enough information to diagnose the problem...if we are allowed to collect that data we can examine it."

    So this will be AI-augmented autodiagnostic, right? If the customer actually needs this he doesn't know how his systems work or what's in there in the first place. Maybe he should invest in de-byzantination first. The disbelief in magic is pervasive.

  2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    Interesting....

    One in the eye for all the Sunshiners that predicted that Larry was just going to ditch Oracle Linux and only push Slowaris on the x64 platform. It looks like either Larry thinks the market is big enough for both, or that he just thinks Slowaris belongs on SPARC only. Maybe we'll see him fold Slowaris on x64 into Oracle Linux.... Not surprising, though, that he has to go to the real powerhouse of the x64 world, hp, to find out what is being installed where. It would have been pointless asking the third-tier Galaxy team!

    As for Arnie, given the Sunset-like state of Californian finances, I'm sure it was a welcome break from the political pain to come and fly the flag for some Californian companies. Nice to see a top politician giving visible support to the tech sector, which is rare. Shame that the current Californian crisis is casuing a brain-drain throughout the State, with far too many professionals moving to neighbouring states like Texas. Ah well, Sillicon Valley's loss is probably to Austin's and Houston's gain!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Ellison ?

    Look at the damn pictures of the guy in action, he manages to behave like even more of a cult leader than Jobs, and spends money like water, even when his company is headed for the buffers. Larry==massive tool

  4. zvonr
    Jobs Horns

    @Matt

    Folding Solaris into Linux? Do you think they will also fold Oracle DB into Mysql ?

    What are you smoking?

    It is quite simple what Oracle will do with Solaris, it will position it as the high end, reliable, highperformance UNIX. They will charge more for Solaris than for Unbreakable Linux, Unbreakable Linux will be kept to undercut Redhat pricing, lure customers. This is preety much how IBM positions AIX or HP positions HPUX.

    What Oracle will also do is gradually decomission and replace all their internal Dell, HP, IBM kit with Sun kit.(See how HP is gone from DB Machine)

    Oracle is a bussiness, it is not a charitable organization.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Re: Interesting....

    It wouldn't be an article about Sun without a Matt Bryant commentary and a geography lesson: Texas is a neighbouring state to California now, is it? Is there a Mexican stargate involved?

    Certainly it would be interesting if Sun did make Solaris available under a GPL-compatible licence, thus permitting the infusion of Solaris stuff into Linux, but I doubt that the latter is really going to drive the former. As for Oracle Linux itself, what's to say? Oracle customers may go for the half-arsed Oracle delivery of Oracle gear - anyone who has spent any time on Oracle's developer site or who has installed an Oracle product knows just how awful it all is - but as everyone else said at the time, Red Hat had little to fear from Oracle eating their lunch. Go to Larry's people for support on software written by someone else? Laughable! The support is bad enough on stuff they've put out themselves.

  6. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    FAIL

    RE: @Matt RE: Re: Interesting...

    RE: zvonr

    ".....It is quite simple what Oracle will do with Solaris, it will position it as the high end, reliable, highperformance UNIX. They will charge more for Solaris than for Unbreakable Linux, Unbreakable Linux will be kept to undercut Redhat pricing...." Slight problem for the Sunshiners, then - that was exactly the plan Sun used to have for Slowaris. Sun's plan was SPARC-Slowaris for the "high-end" at a nice price, and use "free" Slowaris on x64 to fight Linux. It didn't work. So if Larry's plan is effectively the same he's just destined to repeat the failings of Sun.

    "...This is preety much how IBM positions AIX or HP positions HPUX...." Close, but no cigar. You'll notice that hp and IBM didn't waste time trying to fight the Linux juggernaut, instead they used it to kill Sun. If Larry goes from general Linux support to war with the Linux community then he will lose, regardless of how tightly he ties Oracle DB or other products to Slowaris or Oracle Linux. Despite the interesting poll results he quotes, I personally don't know any company in the UK that uses Oracle Linux, but I know plenty (including mine) that use Red Hat. Sure, I don't know every company in the UK, but I suspect I know people that work in IT in a largish wedge of the corporations Larry will want to target, and Sun already failed in.

    "...Oracle is a bussiness, it is not a charitable organization." You may want to keep that in mind when you Sunshiners start prattling on about how Larry is just going to take the old Sun and "make it better" - he can't. He will have to chop large chunks of deadwood to get it into shape, and Rock was just the start.

    RE: AC

    "It wouldn't be an article about Sun without a Matt Bryant commentary...." I know you Sunshiners think you're the only people qualified to have any thoughts on Sun at all, and that us customers should just shut up and listen to your "superior knowledge", but that kind of attitude is one of the factors that got Sun canned. Don't you think it's about time you learned to listen a little? True, my posts are more than a tad sarcastic, but then you guys are such an easy target!

    "....Texas is a neighbouring state to California now, is it?...." Not directly neighbouring, but here in the UK the definition of neighbour is someone that is close by, not neccessarily next door. Did you ever wonder why an area called a "neighbourhood" didn't just consist of three houses? Of course, I notice that you don't deny the brain-drain from California, a serious economic factor that is affecting Sillicon Valley. If that is the best critique of my post you can do then we really do need some new Sunshiners, the old ones are just getting more and more pathetic.

    "....Certainly it would be interesting if Sun did make Solaris available under a GPL-compatible licence...." They can't. There is too much copyrighted material in Slowaris, which is why even the less-capable OpenSlowaris has to be licensed under the CDDL fudge.

    "....Go to Larry's people for support on software written by someone else? Laughable!...." You're forgetting, that's what Sun tried with their own Linux support. However, I have used Oracle support for RAC on Rad Hat and found them very good, so maybe Larry's people aren't as bad as the old Sun "support" for Linux (which just seems to have consisted of asking why users didn't switch to Slowaris). And Oracle DB or RAC installs - onto hp-ux, Red Hat or Windows at least - don't seem that hard, so all I can come up with is that you must be incompetant.

    /SP&L

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    RE: Re: Interesting...

    "I know you Sunshiners think you're the only people qualified to have any thoughts on Sun at all, and that us customers should just shut up and listen to your "superior knowledge", but that kind of attitude is one of the factors that got Sun canned. Don't you think it's about time you learned to listen a little? True, my posts are more than a tad sarcastic, but then you guys are such an easy target!"

    I don't work at Sun and although I've used Sun kit, it's been a long time since I did so. Some of it was reasonable, if pricey, some of it was obviously flawed. Not everyone who sees merit in Sun's stuff has a relationship with Sun - it's not a George W. Bush world, you know?

    "Not directly neighbouring, but here in the UK the definition of neighbour is someone that is close by, not neccessarily next door. Did you ever wonder why an area called a "neighbourhood" didn't just consist of three houses?"

    That tearing sound was that particular definition as you tried to stretch it to fit geography and a bunch of other domains.

    "They can't. There is too much copyrighted material in Slowaris, which is why even the less-capable OpenSlowaris has to be licensed under the CDDL fudge."

    Erm, there's "copyrighted material" in virtually everything, apart from explicitly public domain stuff. What you presumably meant was that there's "encumbered material" in Solaris: stuff they can't relicense, perhaps because they don't own it. (That "Slowaris" joke never tires, does it?) There was also encumbered material in the JDK, but they got there in the end, so I'm not completely convinced that it isn't a matter of politics. And if so, the politicians will be up against Larry, so the situation isn't static by any means.

    "And Oracle DB or RAC installs - onto hp-ux, Red Hat or Windows at least - don't seem that hard, so all I can come up with is that you must be incompetant."

    If you're going to lash out and put someone in their place, at least try and spell the chosen insult correctly, even though it probably won't change the impression we're getting of someone with a chip on their shoulder about Sun, who foams at the mouth at the very mention of the organisation.

  8. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    RE: RE: Re: Interesting...

    ".....That tearing sound was that particular definition as you tried to stretch it...." Agreed, but if you don't give the Sunshiners something to come back at then all we get is Kebabfart's bleating about cache. However, the Californian brain-drain is not a stretch at all. Whilst it may be too early to start wondering when certain global IT companies might decide to move out of Silly-con Valley to neighbouring or geographically-close-but-not-quite-neighbouring states (happy now?), it would seem logial that they will eventually if California can't provide the people they require.

    "....There was also encumbered material in the JDK..." IIRC, the encumbered material in the JDK was largely Sun's own, or owned by non-competing parties whom had no interest in fighting Sun. The core of Slowaris (sorry, it never does tire) is System V UNIX, and Larry has little chance of getting all the players onside on that as some of them have the same code in their proprietary UNIX. For example, I don't expect IBM to be going out of their way to help Larry, and I believe they have rights to some of the code in Slowaris (nope, still not tired!). And whilst Novell have stated "We don't believe there is Unix in Linux", they also said they weren't interested in suing the other UNIX vendors, which kinda hints they think there is material "encumbered" by Novell in commercial UNIX releases, probably including Slowaris (tired? Moi? Never!). Didn't Sun jump to the front of the non-existant queue to pay SCO to "license" UNIX in Slowaris (not done just yet)? I'm sure that wasn't just because they wanted to see Linux crushed, or are you telling me they really knew there was no need to license and they just did want to fund SCO to kill Linux (<insert faux shock here>)? Some of us Linux users have long memories (and Google cache to back them up when alcohol has erased brain cells).

    "....And if so, the politicians will be up against Larry...." Yes, and we all know Larry is the new knight-In-shining-white-armour that replaced Steve Jobs as the last enterpreneur-of-suitable-innovative-mysticism-ready-to-save-Sun-unchanged-and-stroke-sunshiner's-egos, bla-bla-bla, but even SuperLarry and his UberBankAccount have their limits. Even if he did get Novell onside by purchase, he'd still have to deal with IBM, and I really don't think even his ego is big enough for that, especially as he seems to have spent the last quarter antagonising IBM. Now, Larry may be loud, but I happen to think he is a very smart man, and I don't think he'd be opening an IBM charm offensive in such a manner, so it looks like he really doesn't have that in mind.

    "....If you're going to lash out and put someone in their place, at least try and spell the chosen insult correctly...." Well, it was more laughing-at rather than lashing-out-at. Are we a wee bit sensitive? Apologies for my spelling, but my boss till doesn't think I require a secretary to do my edits. But, TBH, even in the old days when you had to mess about linking files and changing permissions, Oracle installations weren't exactly brain surgery, which is one of the reasons Oracle became the DB of choice. Nowadays it's even easier, so, IMO, the original poster must be thick (<= much easier to spell!).

    ".....someone with a chip on their shoulder about Sun, who foams at the mouth at the very mention of the organisation." More of a falls-of-the-chair-laughing-at, and mainly directed at the Sunshiners and their blinkered views. I did know a number of very intelligent and skilled people that used to work at Guillemont Park, some whom would even hold their hands up and admit to being my friends, but the truth is most of them have left Sun for pastures greener a while ago (shockingly, one of them even went to Microsoft!!!!). My "chip" is not a Sun in general issue, it's more to do with the comic attitude of the Sunshiners (not Sun employees) that have hitched their careers to the Sun wagon and rode it through the good times, happy in their herd-mentality and roughshod over anyone with a conflicting view, but now find it so hard to admit they may have been wrong. Why shouldn't we have a good laugh at their expense, especially as they are so easy to provoke? After all, pretty much all they have left is a sense of humour, and if they're losing that.....

    /Slowaris - nah, it's got too good a ring to it to drop just yet!

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