(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 software companies such as PeopleSoft in 2004 and
Siebel Systems in 2005. In 2010, Oracle acquired Sun
Microsystems to become a full-fledged computer systems company
as well as master of Java, one of the