Oracle - technical definition

(Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores, CA, www.oracle.com) The world's largest database and enterprise software vendor founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison. The Oracle database has been Oracle's flagship product, which was the first DBMS to incorporate the SQL query language. It became very popular due to its robustness and huge variety of platforms that it ran on.

In the mid-1990s, Oracle was a major promoter of the network computer, forming subsidiary Network Computer, Inc. to define the specifications for the platform. Although the network computer did not take off, the principles it embodied are widely used in today's thin client architectures and are ever increasing. See network computer and Liberate.

After the turn of the century, the company greatly enhanced its application offerings by acquiring world class companies such as PeopleSoft in 2004 and Siebel Systems in 2005. See Oracle database, PeopleSoft and Siebel software.