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Happy Birthday Oracle – June 16, 2024 – 47 years!

Written by Rich Niemiec | Jun 11, 2024 11:00:00 AM

On June 16, 1903, Ford Motor Company was incorporated, and the Industrial Revolution started to hit a major acceleration point. On June 16, 1977, a similar event occurred with the incorporation of Oracle Corporation, originally called Systems Development Laboratories – SDL. Oracle went public on March 12, 1986, one day before Microsoft and eight days after Sun and the Tech Revolution began. As we now head into the AI Revolution that began with the release of ChatGPT, Oracle has a clear advantage over other database vendors. With Oracle's lead in data security, manageability, availability, recoverability, and the Autonomous Database to quickly spin up data lakes, data warehouses, and other data sources that are self-managing, Oracle is the clear #1 Leader in Data. 

Oracle has a decades-long investment in the database that few will ever catch and a strong Data Analytics tools practice (20+ years) with excellent Data Mining Tools created over the past 30 years, investments in both Machine Learning (ML) and AI in the past 10-15 years. Oracle is in the Magic Quadrant in Cloud (recently), Analytics, and, to some degree, fully ready with Machine Learning. But now, with the Vector Database, Oracle can play with the AI leaders by using Cohere, OpenAI (ChatGPT), and others as partners (see my last Viscosity Blog on Oracle and AI) while leveraging the best database. Every company needs the best security on the best database that took 47 years to perfect as we head into the Age of AI and Robotics.

 

Oracle Celebrates 47 Years:

Oracle celebrates its 47th anniversary On June 16, 2024, as a multi-billion dollar company literally driving every major business and government in the world. It’s amazing to look back on the history of Oracle Corporation and the diverse team that has led to its success. Larry has been the driving factor of Oracle the company, but Bob Miner, whose Assyrian family emigrated from Ada, Iran, was the driving factor of Oracle the product (Larry's first wife was named Adda).

America is all about freedom, resilience, and opportunity. Larry Ellison & Bob Miner are examples of what is possible in a free society. Larry’s surname is even based on Ellis Island. Larry’s entrepreneurial success story shows that anything is possible where people enjoy freedom and an entrepreneur spirit burns. On the Statue of Liberty, it reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” That golden door eventually led Larry to the Golden Gate Bridge and the establishment of Oracle Corporation in Silicon Valley in 1977.

 


The Early Years at Oracle through the eyes of Bruce Scott:

 

Prior to forming Oracle, Bob Miner was Larry Ellison’s manager where they worked at Ampex together on a CIA project code named “Oracle.” Larry chose Bob as his manager because he liked Bob a lot more than his original manager. Ed Oates, another founder of Oracle, happened to be walking by Bob Miner’s door when Larry Ellison mentioned his (Larry’s) wife’s name. It turned out to be Ed Oates’ lab partner from high school. Bruce Scott, who would be hired upon the formation of the company, is the “Scott” in Scott/Tiger (the tiger was Bruce’s daughter’s cat).

 

When Larry went on to work at Precision Instruments, he discovered Precision Instruments had a need to do a $400K consulting project. For three or four engineers, that was a lot of money back then since wages were about 1/10 of what they are now. Larry landed the deal. Larry was not part of the new company when it was founded; he was still at Precision Instruments. The new company was called Software Development Labs (SDL). We had three employees when we started the company in August of 1977. Bob Miner was the president; Ed Oates and I (Bruce Scott) were both software engineers. We did 90% of the work on this two-year project in the first year, so we had the next year to work on the "Oracle" database. Ed Oates finished the other 10% of the project over the next year, while Bob Miner and I started to write the Oracle database.

When we completed the Precision Instruments work, we had about $200,000 in the bank. We decided that we wanted to be a product company and not a consulting company. Bob wanted to build an ISAM product for the DEC PDP11. He felt there was a need for an access layer. Larry wasn’t interested in that at all. Larry had been following what IBM was doing, and he found a paper on the System/R based on Codd’s 1970 paper on relational databases. It described the SQL language, which was at the time called SEQUEL/2. Larry brought us the paper and asked if we could build this. We thought that it would be easy enough to do. So we started. I was 24 years old at the time, Bob was about 15 years older than me, and Larry was about 10 years older than me. I left Oracle in 1982 after about five and one-half years working there. When I left, we had just finished version 3 of the database. Roughly half the code was mine, and half was Bob’s. I believe that a lot of the parser code in the current database may still be mine. Bruce Scott said that his best day was Oracle’s first user’s conference. This was a customer conference that we put on. It was in 1982, and it drew about 25-50 people. It was beginning to catch on.

In a 1998 Nicole Ricci Interview, Larry Ellison said: “In fact, when I started Oracle, the goal was never to have a large company. At best, I hoped we would have fifty people in the company and make a good living. About five years into the company, it became pretty clear that the horizons were unlimited. The only limitations were us.” Here’s a timeline of how things progressed:

 

Oracle RDBMS History Over the Year:

  • 1970—Dr. Edgar Codd publishes his theory of relational data modeling.
  • 1977—Software Development Laboratories (SDL) was formed by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, Ed Oates, and Bruce Scott with $2,000 of startup cash. Larry and Bob came from Ampex, where they were working on a CIA project code-named “Oracle.” Bob and Bruce began work on the database.
  • 1978—The CIA is the first customer, yet the product is not released commercially as of yet. SDL changes its name to Relational Software Inc. (RSI)
  • 1979—RSI ships the first commercial version, Version 2.3 (there is no V1 shipped due to fears that people won’t buy the first version of the software) of the database written in Assembler Language. The first commercial versions of the software are sold to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Bank of America. It is the first commercial RDBMS on the market.
  • 1981—The first tool, Interactive Application Facility (IAF), which is a predecessor to Oracle’s future SQL*Forms tool, is created.
  • 1982—RSI changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation (OSC) and then simplified the name to Oracle Corporation.
  • 1983—Version 3 (3.1.3), written in C (which makes it portable), is shipped. Bob Miner writes half while also supporting the Assembler-based V2, and Bruce Scott writes the other half. It is the first 32-bit RDBMS (capable of accessing 4G of memory - if there was more than 64K out there).
  • 1984 – Version 4 (4.1.4) released. First tools released, (IAG –genform, IAG-runform, RPT). First database with read consistency. Oracle ported to the PC.
  • 1985—Version 5 & 5.1.17 are released, the First Parallel Server database on VMS/VAX.
  • 1986—Oracle goes public March 12th (the day before Microsoft and 8 days after Sun). The stock opens at $15 and closes at $20.75. Oracle Client/Server is introduced; first client/server database. Oracle 5.1.17 is released.
  • 1987—Oracle is the largest DBMS company. Oracle Applications group started. First SMP (symmetrical multi-processing) database introduced.
  • 1987—Oracle’s Rich Niemiec, along with Brad Brown, and Joe Trezzo working at Oracle (later the 3 team up at TUSC), implement the first production client/server application running Oracle on a souped-up 286 running 16 concurrent client/server users for NEC Corporation (featured in Oracle Magazine).
  • 1988—Oracle V6 released. First row-level locking. First hot database backup. Oracle moves from Belmont to Redwood Shores. PL/SQL introduced.
  • 1992—Oracle V7 is released.
  • 1993—Oracle GUI client/server development tools were introduced. Oracle Applications moved from character mode to client/server.
  • 1994—Bob Miner, the genius behind the Oracle database technology, dies of cancer.
  • 1995—First 64-bit database. It is the first 64-bit RDBMS (capable of accessing 16 Exabytes of memory - if you could find more than 1.5G on a server). 
  • 1996—Oracle7.3 released.
  • 1997—Oracle8 is introduced. Oracle Application Server is introduced. Applications for the web is introduced. Oracle is the first web database (predecessor to the Cloud. Oracle BI tools like Discoverer are introduced for data warehousing. Tools have native Java support.
  • 1998—First major RDBMS (Oracle8) ported to Linux. Applications 11 shipped. Oracle is the first database with XML support.
  • 1999—Oracle 8i released. Integrates Java/XML into development tools. Oracle is the first database with native Java support.
  • 2000—Oracle9i Application Server released at it becomes the first database with middle-tier cache. Launches E-Business Suite, wireless database with OracleMobile, Oracle9i Application Server Wireless and Internet File System (iFS).
  • 2001—Oracle9i (9.1) released. Oracle is the first database with Real Application Clusters (RAC).
  • 2002—Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2) released
  • 2003—Oracle at France Telecom is #1 on Winter Group’s Top Ten in DB size at 29T.
  • 2003—Oracle10g comes out – Grid focused, Encrypted Backups, Auto-Tuning & ASM
  • 2005—Oracle RAC at Amazon hits the Winter Group’s Top Ten in DB size at 25T.
  • 2005—Oracle buys PeopleSoft (includes JD Edwards), Oblix (Identity Management), Retek (Retail) $630M, TimesTen (in-memory DB), and Innobase (InnoDB Open Source).
  • 2006—Oracle buys Siebel for $5.8B, Sleepycat Software (Open Source), and Stellant (Content Management). Oracle, with an Open Source push, offers “unbreakable” support for Oracle Linux.
  • 2006—Oracle10g R2 comes out in fall
  • 2007—Oracle buys Hyperion EPM for $3.3B.
  • 2007—Oracle 11g comes out
  • 2008—Oracle Exadata announced; Oracle buys BEA
  • 2009—Oracle Releases 11g R2; Oracle buys Sun (Java, MySQL, Solaris, StorageTek)
  • 2010—Oracle Announces MySQL Cluster
  • 2011—Oracle Releases OCI, 11g Express Edition (9/24), SuperCluster, Data Appliance
  • 2014—Oracle Releases InMemory (12.1.0.2)
  • 2016—Oracle Releases 12cR2
  • 2018—Oracle acquires Datascience.com AI company
  • 2019—Oracle Releases 19c (Feb. on Exadata, April on Linux, June in the Cloud)
  • 2020—Oracle moves from California to Austin, Texas
  • 2021—Oracle Acquires Cerner Health IT company for $28.3B
  • 2023—Oracle Releases 23c (23.2.0: April on Linux, September on Base DB Service)
  • 2023—Oracle Introduces Integrated Vector Database to Augment Generative AI (GenAI) as a planned part of the 23c Converged Database (September 19, 2023 at CloudWorld)
  • 2024—Coming soon is 23.4 Database with AI Vector Search and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) that combines LLMs with database data to augment GenAI  

 

I asked Bruce Scott what made Oracle successful in his mind. Bruce said: “I’ve thought about this a lot. I really think that it was Larry. There were a lot of other databases (like Ingres) out there that we beat. It was really Larry’s charisma, vision, and determination to make this thing work no matter what. It’s just the way Larry thinks. I can give you an example I tell people that exemplifies his thought process: We had space allocated to us, and we needed to get our terminals strung to the computer room next door. We didn’t have anywhere to really string the wiring. Larry picks up the hammer, crashes a hole in the middle of the wall, and says there you go. It’s just the way he thinks, make a hole, make it happen somehow. It was Larry, the right thing and the right time.” I always tell people that Larry Ellison is the genius behind Oracle, the company with Charles Phillips, Safra Catz, and Judith Sim driving Larry’s vision; Bob Miner was the genius behind Oracle, the product. Bob Miner’s development spirit has continued on through Derry Kabcenell, Roger Bamford, Andy Mendelsohn (currently), Ken Jacobs, and many others. The combination of the diverse team Oracle has had over the years is the secret of their success! Happy 47th Birthday to Oracle on June 16th with the best database for AI on the planet!

 

References:

  • Rich Niemiec Interviews Bruce Scott, Select Magazine, 2001

  • Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Performance Tips & Techniques, Rich Niemiec, June 2017

  • Retrospective: Still Growing After All These Years, Rich Niemiec, Oracle Magazine, 2001

  • The Difference between God and Larry Ellison, Mike Wilson, November 1998

  • History of Oracle, Donita Klement, 1999

  • Rich Niemiec ©2023. This document cannot be reproduced without expressed written consent from Rich Niemiec or Viscosity NA, but the author may reproduce or copy it for article, presentation, and conference use.

  • Neither Viscosity nor the author guarantees that this document will be error-free. Please send comments/questions to richniemiec@gmail.com or rich.niemiec@viscosityna.com; I am always looking to improve!

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