Why is/was Oracle such a successful company?
Aug 25, 2021
14 Comments
Hoping for serious answers.
Please bear with me as I’ve only been in the tech industry for about 7 years.
I’ve noticed that many, many large enterprises have a significant Oracle footprint - primarily databases but occasionally some business platforms like Hyperion(?) and Peoplesoft(?).
These products appear to be extremely expensive - enterprises pay something like $50,000 _per core_(!) for the database.
My question is: why? There is a blind meme that Oracle has crap technology.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t make the first relational database. I’m pretty sure they weren’t the first to offer support on databases. Why are so many companies using Oracle, despite the extreme cost? What made Oracle so much better back in the day?
comments
IBM did not take Codd's idea of a relational db seriously, paving the way for Ellison and team to make a moolah out of it.
Research turned up: https://gizmodo.com/larry-ellisons-oracle-started-as-a-cia-project-1636592238