Oracle Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
 |
|
| Type | Public (NASDAQ: ORCL) |
| Founded | California (?) (1977) |
| Location | Redwood Shores, California |
| Key people | Lawrence (Larry) J. Ellison, CEO Jeff Henley, Chairman Safra Catz, President/CFO Chuck Phillips, President |
| Industry | Software & Programming |
| Products | Oracle Database Oracle eBusiness Suite Oracle Application Server Oracle JDeveloper Oracle ADF Oracle Collaboration Suite Oracle Enterprise Manager |
| Revenue |  $10.156 billion USD (2004) |
| Employees | 50,881 (2005) |
| Website | www.oracle.com |
Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), one of the major companies developing database management systems, tools for database development, and enterprise resource planning software, dates from 1977 and has offices in more than 145 countries around the world. As of 2005, it employs over 50,000 worldwide.
Lawrence J. Ellison (Larry Ellison) has served as Oracle's CEO for several years. Ellison served as the chairman of the board until his replacement by Jeff Henley in 2004. Ellison retains his role as CEO. Forbes magazine once adjudged Ellison the richest man in the world.
Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems named A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. He had heard about the IBM System R database, also based on Codd's theories, and wanted Oracle to be compatible with it, but IBM stopped this by keeping the error codes for their DBMS secret. He founded Oracle in 1977 under the name Software Development Laboratories. In 1979 SDL changed its name to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI). In 1983, RSI was renamed Oracle Corporation to more closely align itself with its flagship product Oracle database with Howard Johns as senior programmer.
Contents |
Products
As of 2004 Oracle Corporation shipped release 10g (g: grid) as the latest version of the Oracle Database. Oracle Application Server 10g using J2EE comprises the server part of that version of the database, making it possible to deploy web technology applications. The application server is the first middle-tier software designed for grid computing. The strong interrelationship between Oracle 10g and Java has enabled the company to allow 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.
Oracle Corporation's tools for developing applications include Oracle Designer, Oracle Developer - that consists of Oracle (Web)Forms, Oracle Discoverer and Oracle Reports, Oracle JDeveloper, and several more. Many external and third-party tools make the Oracle database administrator's tasks easier.
Besides databases, Oracle also sells a suite of business applications. The Oracle e-Business Suite includes software to perform financial, manufacturing and HR (Human Resource Management Systems) related functions. User access to these facilities is provided through a browser interface over the internet or corporate intranet.
"Can't break it, can't break in"
Oracle markets many of its products using the slogan "can't break it, can't break in". This signifies the increasing demands on information safety. Oracle Corporation also stresses the reliability of networked databases and network access to databases as major selling points.
The slogan backfired just weeks after its introduction in 2002, as David Litchfield and others demonstrated a whole suite of successful attacks against Oracle products. [1] [2]. The slogan was widely criticized as unrealistic, and as an invitation to crackers.
Competition
In 2004, Oracle's sales grew at a rate of 14.5% to $6.2 billion, giving it 41.3% and the top share of the relational-database market. (InformationWeek - March, 2005) Competitors include Sybase, IBM and Microsoft.
History
- August 1977: Oracle founded as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
- June 1979: SDL is renamed to Relational Software Inc. (RSI), and relocates to Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California. Oracle 2, the first version of the Oracle database runs on PDP-11 and is sold to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The company decides to name the first version of its flagship product version 2 rather than version 1 because it believes companies may hesitate to buy the initial release of its product.
- October 1979: RSI actively promotes Oracle on the VAX platform (the software runs on the VAX in PDP-11 emulator mode)
- February 1981: RSI begins developing tools for Oracle, including the Interactive Application Facility (IAF), a predecessor to Oracle*Forms.
- March 1983: RSI rewrites Oracle in C for portability and Oracle version 3 is released. RSI is renamed to Oracle to more closely align with its primary product. The word Oracle was the name of an unfinished consulting project for the CIA where the CIA wanted to use this new SQL language that Dr. Edgar F. Codd of IBM had written a white paper about.
- October 1984: Oracle version 4 released, introducing read consistency
- November 1984: Oracle ports the Oracle database to the PC platform. The MS-DOS version of Oracle runs in only 640K of memory.
- April 1985: Oracle version 5 released. It is one of the first RDBMSs to operate in client/server mode.
- 1986: Oracle version 5.1 released with support for distributed queries. Investigations into clustering begin.
- March 15, 1986: Oracle goes public with revenues of $55 million USD.
- August 1987: Oracle founds its Applications division, building business mangement software closely integrated with its database software. Oracle acquires TCI for its project management software.
- 1988: Oracle version 6 is released, featuring the embedded procedural language PL/SQL and support for row-level locking and hot backups.
- 1989: Oracle moves world headquarters to Redwood Shores, California. Revenues reach US$584 million
- 1990: In the third quarter, Oracle reports its first ever loss, hundreds of employees are laid off. Ellison hires Jeff Henley as CFO and Raymond Lane.
- June 1992: Oracle 7 released with performance enhancements, administrative utilities, application development tools, security features, stored procedures, triggers, and support for declarative referential integrity.
- June 21, 1995: Oracle announces new data warehousing facilities, including parallel queries.
- November 1995: Oracle is one of the first large software companies to announce an internet strategy when Ellison introduces the network computer concept at an IDC conference in Paris
- April 1997: Oracle releases the first version of Discoverer, an ad-hoc query tool for business intelligence.
- June 1997: Oracle 8 is released with SQL object technology, internet technology and support for terabytes of data
- September 1997: Oracle announces its commitment to the Java platform, and introduces Oracle's Java integrated development environment, which will come to be known as Oracle JDeveloper.
- January 1998: Oracle releases Oracle Applications 10.7 NCA. All the applications in the business software now run across the web in a standard web browser.
- May 1998: Oracle Applications 11 is released.
- April 1998: Oracle announces that it will integrate a Java virtual machine with the Oracle database.
- September 1998: Oracle 8i is released.
- October 1998: Oracle 8 and Oracle Application Server 4.0 are released on the Linux platform.
- May 1999: Oracle releases JDeveloper 2.0, showcasing Business Components for Java (BC4J), a set of libraries and development tools for building database aware applications.
- 2000: OracleMobile subsidiary founded. Oracle 9i released.
- May 2000: Oracle announces the Internet File System (iFS)
- June 2000: Oracle9i Application Server released with support for building portals.
- 2001: Ellison announces that Oracle saved $1 billion implementing and using its own business applications
- 2004: Oracle 10g released.
- December 13, 2004: After a long battle over the control of PeopleSoft, Oracle announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share (approximately $10.3 billion).
- January 14, 2005: Oracle announces that it will reduce its combined workforce to 50,000, a reduction of approximately 5,000 following the PeopleSoft take over. 90% of PeopleSoft product development and product support staff will be retained.
- March, 2005: Oracle extends its Middle East operations by planning to open a regional office in Amman, Jordan.
- March 28, 2005: Oracle acquires identity management software company Oblix.
- April 11, 2005: Oracle completes purchase of retail software maker Retek.
- June 2005: Oracle acquires TripleHop, a context-sensitive search technology, from TripleHop Technologies, Inc., and high performance database technology from TimesTen.
- June 29, 2005: Oracle announces earnings results that exceed market expectations.
- July 2005: Oracle purchases content integration technologies from Context Media.
- July 18, 2005: Oracle announces that they have completed the acquisition of ProfitLogic, LLC, a company that produces software that analyzes consumer demand patterns.
- August 2, 2005: Oracle announces that they are acquiring a 61% stake in the Indian banking software company, i-flex.
- August 26, 2005: Oracle announces that they are joining forces with Sun Microsystems to create database infrastructure packages.
- September 12, 2005: Oracle announces that it has agreed to buy Siebel Systems for $5.85 billion.
Headquarters
Oracle Corporation has its world headquarters on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Redwood Shores area of Redwood City, adjacent to Belmont, near San Carlos Airport (SQL).
Oracle HQ stands on the former site of Marine World, which moved from Redwood Shores to Vallejo in 1986. Oracle Corporation originally leased two buildings from the site, moving its finance and administration departments from the corporation's former headquarters in Menlo Park. Eventually, Oracle purchased the complex and constructed a further four main buildings.
The Oracle Parkway buildings were prominently featured as the futuristic headquarters of fictional company "NorthAm Robotics" in the Robin Williams film Bicentennial Man (1999). [3]
