Oracle

Analyst Coverage :

Philip Howard

David Norfolk

Oracle Corporation is the third-largest software maker by revenue, after Microsoft and IBM. It is US-based but operates globally, in some 145 countries, and with more than 390,000 customers (including all of the Fortune 100).

It was formed in 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates to sell its eponymous Relational DBMS (which is still the market leader). It has since expanded its scope of operation by aggressive acquisition, buying (for example) PeopleSoft/JD Edwards (2004); Siebel Systems (2006); Hyperion Solutions Corporation (2007); BEA Systems (2008); and Sun Microsystems (2010). With the SUN acquisition, it gained the position of lead JAVA developer, although JAVA still runs as an independent open-source project.

Oracle’s product portfolio now provides solutions including hardware (servers, storage and appliances); operating systems (Linux and Solaris); middleware (under the Fusion banner); identity management and security; DBMSs (including MySQL, TimesTen and the Exadata appliance, as well as Oracle); data warehousing and analytics; and, business applications (eg ERP, CRM and supply chain management, also to be integrated under the Fusion banner). Its breadth of offerings is beginning to rival that of IBM.