Excuse me, sushi or escargot with those financials?

Oracle, faced with a last minute scheduling conflict with a key executive, canceled its analyst day conference Wednesday - making an abrupt change just days before the event was set to begin in New York.

But rather than leave Wall Street analysts and Oracle customers in the lurch, the database giant offered up a two-hour lunch with Charles Phillips and Safra Catz, Oracle co-presidents, rather than the all-day affair they had previously planned with a wide-ranging cast of Oracle executives.

And fortunately for those who had already booked their airfare and hotel reservations, the lunch will be held on the same date and location as the financial analysts' day.

But as Wall Street's soothsayers prepare to make the trek over to the posh Mandarin Oriental hotel and restaurant, speculation may run rampant between bites of pressed suckling pig and lobster tagine the reasons for the scheduling conflict.

One Wall Street analyst has already laid out an appetizer of information, noting Oracle's Greg Maffei, chief financial officer, and Larry Ellison, founder, are not expected to be present at the luncheon - leaving one to wonder if their schedules were hit with a major conflict.

An Oracle spokesman, meanwhile, noted that all that can be said at this point is a key executive ran into a scheduling conflict and the analysts day will be rescheduled for sometime in early 2006.

Bon appetit.