Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) is one of the major companies developing database management systems, tools for database development, enterprise resource planning software, customer relationship management software (CRM) and supply chain planning (SCM) software. Oracle was founded in 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 Jeffrey O. Henley in 2004. Ellison retains his role as CEO. Forbes magazine once judged 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 from an article in the IBM Research Journal provided by co-founder Ed Oates, 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 Robert Miner as senior programmer.

Products

As of 2004, Oracle Corporation shipped release 10g (g: grid) as the latest version of the Oracle Database. Oracle Application Server 10g using Java EE 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.