# Oracle

> The company behind one of the most used business databases, now also a cloud provider.

- Level: Basic
- Topics: Tech companies, Data
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/oracle/
- In Spanish: [Oracle](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/oracle/)

**Oracle** is an American software company founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates. Its first and most famous product is **Oracle Database**, one of the first commercial relational databases using SQL. For decades it has been where banks, airlines, telecoms and governments keep their most important records: accounts, bookings, invoices, payroll.

Around the database it built a large set of **business applications**: software for accounting, purchasing, human resources and supply chains, the kind of system often called ERP. It grew partly by buying other companies, such as PeopleSoft, NetSuite and Sun Microsystems, which brought it the Java programming language and the MySQL database. It also owns Cerner, a maker of electronic health record systems used by hospitals.

Its traditional business model is **licenses plus support**: customers pay for the right to use the software and then a yearly fee for updates and help, which brings in steady income for many years. More recently it sells the same things as a cloud service, through **Oracle Cloud Infrastructure**, which rents servers and databases from Oracle's own data centers, and it has become a large supplier of computing capacity for training AI models.

## An analogy

The company that makes the safe where a bank keeps its ledgers, and that also sells the accounting books, the clerks' desks and, lately, rents rooms in its own guarded building to put the safe in.

## Keep in mind

- Founded in 1977; Oracle Database is one of the most widely used business databases.
- Sells business applications (ERP, HR, finance) and owns Java and MySQL.
- Makes money from licenses, yearly support fees and cloud subscriptions.
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure rents servers and databases, including capacity for AI.

## Go deeper

- [About Oracle (official site)](https://www.oracle.com/corporate/)
- [Oracle Corporation on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation)
- [What is a database? (Oracle)](https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-database/)

## Related terms

- [Database](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/database/): An organized store of data that programs can search and update safely.
- [SQL](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/sql/): The language you use to ask a database questions.
- [Programming language](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/programming-language/): A precise, written language people use to give instructions to a computer.
- [Cloud computing](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/cloud-computing/): Renting computers over the internet instead of buying your own.
- [Server](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/server/): A computer whose job is to answer requests from other computers, all day, every day.
- [Data center](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-center/): A building full of servers where the internet, the cloud and AI actually run.
- [Training and inference](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/training-and-inference/): Training builds the model once; inference is using it, millions of times a day.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/artificial-intelligence/): Getting computers to do things that, until recently, only people could do.