The first key note

So the Conference begins properly. Delegates are asked to Que. At 5:30 we start to filter into the Moscone North hall for the first keynote. This room is a very impressive structure that measures something like 800 foot by 300 foot. This is the hall were Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. I wonder if Does Larry have a distortion field as well?

We're met as we walk in with the sound of a loud beat pop combo calling themselves Gear Driver.

The promos start, with only five's minutes to go. Looks like 'who lit the fire is going to be theme of the week'. I hate Billy Joel....
Wedged under our seats are large pieces of card - I wonder why?

We're being told to sit down. The reasons for the cards are becoming clear - there going to be used in a stunt. When held up they form the number 30. We held them up and the guy giving orders is happy.

All of a sudden its become Sunday night live - will this go straight over my head... Is it like 'Not the nine o'clock news' but American?

Larry and the rest of the Oracle board walk in to polite applause.

Larry's reading holding notes...but doesn't seem to be using them.

The keynote is dedicated to Robert M Milner Oracle Co founder who died 10 years ago today, which is rather ironic because he died exactly 20 years after constituting Oracle on on the 11th November '77.

Larry is telling is the genesis story of how Oracle started. In the days of lore when Larry was only a programmer not a manager. Larry has a very odd little laugh - quite disconcerting, I wonder if he had the same laugh then. He also has a habit of speaking really really quickly when he gets excited (that happened three times tonight).

thigs that we learned...
The initial capital put into the the company was $2000.
Larry pitched a relational database to the CIA and called it Oracle. They bought it for $48000.
Version 2 of Oracle was version really version 1.
Looking back on it they were working on lots skunk works projects for the USA intillegence community. ( No doubt today they would be vilified like Haliburton)
We're getting the recuitment tale for all of orginal employees. The canadian programmer, a proper sales man who sold Larry a pizza. The finacial officer...blah blah we're only in 1981! I'm getting hungry and the food dosen't get served until Larry wraps up.
He off...

Part 2.
We get a couple of promo's on Oracle support for the community. One thing that caught my interest as a parent was Oracle's Thinkquest programme. This allows young people from all over the world to collaborate on projects using tools and technologies provided by Oracle. This is something I'll asking more about when I get back home and talking to my children about.

The second promo showed earnest Oracle staff doing their bit for their community. I'll also be following this up to when I get home to see when exaclty my favorate Oracle rep can come and paint my youngest son's school.