Computerworld link

ORLANDO, FLORIDA - Larry Ellison isn't worried that the year 2000 computer problem will cause turmoil, really he isn't, he insisted on Tuesday. But, just in case, the Oracle chief executive officer and chairman has most of his engineering and support staffs on call for the end of this year and the beginning of next.

Ellison didn't offer his own plans for New Year's Day, but he said at the Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) conference that he will be "stunned" if the date rollover causes major computer trouble, adding, "I think it's going to be one huge anticlimax".

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), October 13, 1999

Answers

It's clueless Internet jockeys like Ellison which are the ones who hog the spotlight everytime Y2K get press. These Internet Kiddies who think they know what's going to happen because they can program in C on a top of the line Sun SPARCServer really annoy me.

The people who know we have a problem are most likely the old COBOL and RPG code slingers working in the Fortune 500, the banks, etc. You can't just throw some shiny Oracle server into the computer room and tell the users to go to town. The companies float on their software. There's more to life than netsurfing, Ellison. Some of us have REAL jobs.

Tim (who must go now...payroll is broken again.)

-- Tim the Y2K nut (tmiley@yakko.cs.wmich.edu), October 13, 1999.

People like Ellison and Gates are not going to say anything which will seriously depress the price of their company's stock. Also, they probably haven't investigated y2k and may really believe that there will not be any serious problems.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), October 13, 1999.

...he will be "stunned" if the date rollover causes major computer trouble

"stunned", as in "deer in the headlights".

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), October 13, 1999.

Well, unless he defines "major" he's playing tennis without the net. I can see it now -- a sewage spill in Van Nuys is major. No it isn't. Yes it is. No it isn't. etc.

I expect a LOT of arguments just like that one next year.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 13, 1999.