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Ellison claims no Y2K worries, but...

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ORLANDO, FLA. - Larry Ellison isn't worried that the Y2K computer problem will cause turmoil, really he isn't, he insisted this week. But, just in case, the Oracle chairman and CEO has most of his engineering and support staffs on call for year-end 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."

Like others in the computer industry, Ellison also isn't taking any chances.

His thoughts on the Y2K issue were intended to alleviate concerns voiced by a member of the audience during a question-and-answer session with Ellison following a brief keynote. The audience member said that Oracle assured customers that Releases 10.7 and 11 of its Business Applications software suites were Y2K compliant, but users have had to deal with repeated patches as potential code problems have been found.

He then asked what Oracle intends to do on Jan. 1, 2000 when undetected problems pop up.

The Y2K problem is occurring because most older software code was written with a two-digit date field, so computers might interpret the "00" in 2000 as "1900" and fail to make correct calculations. Y2K problems have cropped up over the last couple of years in particular, and have been more widely reported in recent months, but have been relatively minor and often found in the course of testing. Some predict problems related to the date field in software code would worsen as of Jan. 1.

Ellison isn't among that group.

"We're down to catching really subtle issues with Y2K," he said regarding the software "fixes" Oracle continues to offer customers related to Y2K.

Because the problems are linked to the date change, however, much more is made of them than otherwise would be, Ellison said.

His biggest concern is customized code, written by customers using Oracle applications, he said. Oracle has no control over customized code and so won't be able to step in with a patch for any problems that arise. The catch, though, will be that the customers might not realize it's their own code at fault.

"There will be a problem with the code and the customer won't know whose fault it is," Ellison said, adding, "we've done everything humanly possible to prepare."

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