History[edit]

Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates under the
name Software Development Laboratories (SDL).[2] Ellison took inspiration[6] from the 1970 paper
written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database management systems (RDBMS) named "A
Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks".[7] He heard about the IBM System
R database from an article in the IBM Research Journal provided by Oates. Ellison wanted to make
Oracle's product compatible with System R, but failed to do so as IBM kept the error codes for their
DBMS a secret. SDL changed its name to Relational Software, Inc (RSI) in 1979,[8] then again
to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982,[9] to align itself more closely with its flagship
product Oracle Database. At this stage Bob Miner served as the company's senior programmer. On
March 12, 1986, the company had its initial public offering.[10] In 1995, Oracle Systems Corporation
changed its name to Oracle Corporation,[11] officially named Oracle, but sometimes referred to as
Oracle Corporation, the name of the holding company.[12] Part of Oracle Corporation's early success
arose from using the C programming language to implement its products. This eased porting to
different operating systems (most of which support C).

Technology timeline[edit]
 1979: offers the first commercial SQL[citation needed] RDBMS
 1983: offers a VAX-mode database
 1984: offers the first database with read-consistency
 1986: offers a client-server DBMS
 1987: introduces UNIX-based Oracle applications
 1988: introduces PL/SQL.
 1992: offers full applications implementation methodology
 1995: offers the first 64-bit RDBMS
 1996: moves towards an open standards-based, web-enabled architecture
 1999: offers its first DBMS with XML support
 2001: becomes the first to complete 3 terabyte TPC-H world record
 2002: offers the first database to pass 15 industry standard security evaluations
 2003: introduces what it calls "Enterprise Grid Computing" with Oracle10g
 2005: releases its first free database, Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (XE)
 2006: acquires Siebel Systems
 2007: acquires Hyperion Solutions
 2008: Smart scans in software improve query-response in HP Oracle Database Machine /
Exadata storage
 2010: acquires Sun Microsystems
 2013: begins use of Oracle 12c which is capable of providing cloud services with Oracle
Database
 2014: acquires Micros Systems
 2016: acquires NetSuite Inc.
 2017: acquires Moat
 2017: acquires Aconex
 2017: acquires Apiary
 2017: acquires Wercker

Finances[edit]
 Development since 2005[13]

Revenue Net Income Price per Share

Year Employees
in mil. US$ in mil. US$ in US$

2005 11,799 2,886 11.45

2006 14,380 3,381 13.60

2007 17,996 4,274 17.41

2008 22,430 5,521 17.86

2009 23,252 5,593 18.03

2010 26,820 6,135 23.02

2011 35,622 8,547 28.56

2012 37,121 9,981 27.37

2013 37,180 10,925 31.28 122,000

2014 38,275 10,955 37.72 122,000

2015 38,226 9,938 38.85 132,000

2016 37,047 8,901 37.94 136,000

2017 37,728 9,335 45.70 138,000

Oracle ranked No. 82 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total
revenue.[14] According to Bloomberg, Oracle's CEO-to-employee pay ratio is 1,205:1. The CEO's
compensation in 2017 was $108,295,023. Oracle is one of the approved employers of ACCA and
the median employee compensation rate was $89,887.[15][dead link]

Products and services[edit]

Oracle designs, manufactures, and sells both software and hardware products, as well as offering
services that complement them (such as financing, training, consulting, and hosting services). Many
of the products have been added to Oracle's portfolio through acquisitions.

Software[edit]
Oracle's E-delivery service (Oracle Software Delivery Cloud) provides generic downloadable Oracle
software and documentation.[16]
Databases[edit]

 Oracle Database
Main article: Oracle Database

 Release 10: In 2004, Oracle Corporation shipped release 10g (g standing for "grid") as
the then latest version of Oracle Database. (Oracle Application Server10g using Java
EE integrated with the server part of that version of the database, making it possible to
deploy web-technology applications. The application server comprised the first middle-
tier software designed for grid computing.[citation needed] The interrelationship between Oracle
10g and Java allowed developers to set up stored procedures written in the Java
language, as well as those written in the traditional Oracle database programming
language, PL/SQL.)
 Release 11: Release 11g became the current Oracle Database version in 2007. Oracle
Corporation released Oracle Database 11g Release 2 in September 2009. This version
was available in four commercial editions—Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition,
Standard Edition One, and Personal Edition—and in one free edition—the Express
Edition. The licensing of these editions shows various restrictions and obligations that
were called complex by licensing expert Freirich Florea.[17] The Enterprise Edition (DB
EE), the most expensive of the Database Editions, has the fewest restrictions — but
nevertheless has complex licensing. Oracle Corporation constrains the Standard Edition
(DB SE) and Standard Edition One (SE1) with more licensing restrictions, in accordance
with their lower price.
 Release 12: Release 12c (c standing for "cloud") became available on July 1, 2013.[18]
Oracle Corporation has acquired and developed the following additional database technologies:

 Berkeley DB, which offers embedded database processing

 Oracle Rdb, a relational database system running on OpenVMS platforms. Oracle acquired
Rdb in 1994 from Digital Equipment Corporation. Oracle has since made many
enhancements to this product and development continues as of 2008.
 TimesTen, which features in-memory database operations
 Oracle Essbase, which continues the Hyperion Essbase tradition of multi-dimensional
database management
 MySQL, a relational database management system licensed under the GNU General Public
License, initially developed by MySQL AB
 Oracle NoSQL Database, a scalable, distributed key-value NoSQL database[19]
Middleware[edit]
Main article: Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware is a family of middleware software products, including (for
instance) application server, system integration, business process management(BPM), user
interaction, content management, identity management and business intelligence (BI) products.
Oracle Secure Enterprise Search[edit]
Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES), Oracle's enterprise-search offering, gives users the
ability to search for content across multiple locations, including websites, XML files, file
servers, content management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, customer
relationship management systems, business intelligencesystems, and databases.
Oracle Beehive[edit]
Main article: Oracle Beehive
Released in 2008, the Oracle Beehive collaboration software provides team workspaces
(including wikis, team calendaring and file sharing), email, calendar, instant messaging, and
conferencing on a single platform. Customers can use Beehive as licensed software or
as software as a service ("SaaS").[20]
Applications[edit]
Oracle also sells a suite of business applications. The Oracle E-Business Suite includes
software to perform various enterprise functions related to (for instance) financials,
manufacturing, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP)
and human resource management. The Oracle Retail Suite[21] covers the retail-industry vertical,
providing merchandise management, price management, invoice matching, allocations, store
operations management, warehouse management, demand forecasting, merchandise financial
planning, assortment planning and category management.[citation needed] Users can access these
facilities through a browser interface over the Internet or via a corporate intranet.
Following a number of acquisitions beginning in 2003, especially in the area of applications,
Oracle Corporation as of 2008 maintains a number of product lines:

 Oracle Fusion Applications

Main article: Oracle Fusion Applications

 Oracle Social Engagement and Monitoring (SEM) System – Oracle has developed a Social
Engagement and Monitoring Cloud service that allows businesses to capture relevant brand
conversation from global web and social channels to understand commentary on their
products. The Social Engagement and Monitoring cloud provides the most effective and
efficient responses across social and customer experience channels. SEM is able to route
correct responses to the right team, member, or customer-experience channel to ensure the
best customer service. The analysis helps vendors to understand what is important to
customers. It identifies trends, spikes, and anomalies to make real-time course corrections.
It also can identify brand advocates. The SEM cloud identifies customer intention and
interests by analyzing the common ways customers talk about a product or a service.[22][need
quotation to verify]

 Oracle E-Business Suite

Main article: Oracle E-Business Suite

 PeopleSoft Enterprise
Main article: PeopleSoft
 Siebel
Main article: Siebel Systems

 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
 JD Edwards World
Main article: JD Edwards

 Merchandise Operations Management (Formerly Retek)

 Planning & Optimisation
 Store Operations (Formerly 360Commerce)
Main article: Oracle Retail
Development of applications commonly takes place in Java (using Oracle JDeveloper) or
through PL/SQL (using, for example, Oracle Forms and Oracle Reports/BIPublisher).[citation
needed]
Oracle Corporation has started[citation needed] a drive toward "wizard"-driven environments with a
view to enabling non-programmers to produce simple data-driven applications.