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From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 12:38 AM
To: eWEEK readers
Subject: Clintonian curveball dulls Sapphire luster
“Well, I guess the IT biz aint over till its over,” the Furball formulated as he spied baseball great and philosopher Yogi Berra schmoozing with CeBIT attendees at an MCI booth. Once again, June found the tech faithful hitting New Yorks Javits Center, not for PC Expo or Tech X, but for this years model—a scaled-down, Americanized version of the eight-day über-rally held in Hannover, Germany, every spring.
Although sporting a slightly different layout complete with lounging areas, it still looked like a Javits trade show to Spencer. The big difference was the clustering of booths by country. The Katt didnt imagine many of those vendors were thrilled to have schlepped their wares across the ocean, since activity at the booths seemed quiet as he prowled midday through the hall last Wednesday.
The Mouser was meditating on whether the person who just passed by was the watermelon-destroying comedian Gallagher or his evil sibling, Gallagher II, whos reportedly stolen the act, when he caught up with a Katt crony who had just returned from SAPs Sapphire user conference in Florida.
It seems the buzz at the Orange County Convention Center was why Bill Clinton bailed out at the last minute on giving the opening keynote. The official line was that Clinton couldnt attend when the shows opening day was moved from Tuesday to Monday. Attendees speculated that FOB and campaign contributor Larry Ellison may have asked Clinton not to appear at Oracle rival SAPs show. Hillary Clinton may have been the actual culprit—the ex-prez spent that day at a New York book-signing party for the former first lady. Whether or not Oracle slapped a gag order on Clinton, its certainly kept a tight gag on details of what users can expect out of its upcoming 9i database upgrade. However, an industry insider told the querying Kitty of a feature that will not be in Oracle10i. Despite promises, the Tabby tattler claimed new database encryption features will not be in the upgrade—an odd thing to leave out for a company thats touting its Unbreakable security crusade. “Maybe its just Undeadline-makable,” laughed the Lynx.
The highlight of Spencers Big Apple adventure was his Katt Party at the Black Duck restaurant. Amid booze and schmooze, he learned Microsoft promises more “Longhorn” details at a developers conference in October. Also, the new head honcho and savior of LapLink, Tom Koll, told the Kitty to be on the lookout for a new release next month thatll be the first of several over the next six months and will change the look of the company. Perhaps the most amusing morsel the grokking Grimalkin picked up came from an insider who swore Larry Ellison does not color his hair or beard. Spence rejected due diligence on that.