SQL
SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce after learning about the relational model from Ted Codd in the early 1970s. This version, initially called "SEQUEL" ("Structured English Query Language"), was designed to manipulate and retrieve data stored in IBM's original quasi-relational database management system, System R, which a group at IBM San Jose Research Laboratory had developed during the 1970s.
Open Database Connectivity
In 1988 several vendors, mostly from the Unix and database communities, formed the SQL Access Group (SAG) in an effort to produce a single basic standard for the SQL language. At the first meeting there was considerable debate over whether or not the effort should work solely on the SQL language itself, or attempt a wider standardization which included a dynamic SQL language-embedding system as well, what they called a Call Level Interface (CLI). While attending the meeting with an early draft of what was then still known as MS Data Access, Kyle Geiger of Microsoft invited Jeff Balboni and Larry Barnes of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to join the SQLC meetings as well. SQLC was a potential solution to the call for the CLI, which was being led by DEC.