Oracle in the news

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, has offered to pay $10 million to IBM if IBM can proved that its systems run database software is even as half as fast as those from Oracle (Wall Street Journal October 15, 2009 “Oracle Targets a New Rival: Former Ally IBM”). This posturing on the part of Ellison and Oracle can be attributed to the April acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

For those not familiar with databases, Oracle has been a leader in the field of databases for years.
I would attribute their growth to two reasons: 1) having the best product / database and 2) growth through acquisitions. Its acquisitions beginning in December of 2004 include:
PeopleSoft ($10.3 billion)
Global Logistics Technologies
Siebel Systems ($5.8 billion)
Portal Software ($220 million)
Stellent, Inc ($440 million)
MetaSolv Software
Hyperion Solutions Corporation ($3.3 billion)
BEA Systems ($7.2 billion)
Sun Microsystems ($7.4 billion)

The acquisition of Sun (which is still under review by the EU) has given Oracle an in-house provider of servers. IBM which has worked with Oracle is no longer as important to Oracle. In the past, Oracle and IBM have worked together. The WSJ article made the point that a group of IBM engineers are on-site at the Oracle campus to illustrate this cooperation.

Looking at the table of RDBMS market share below, Oracle is seen to have twice the market share that IBM has. Oracle is without question the market leader. This table for 2006 was the most recent table that I could find.

As some friend of mine who are in the business of selling network hardware would say, it appears that Oracle has the “secret sauce” (much like the secret sauce that McDonalds has). I expect that Oracle will be in a better position for its sales with a capability to now include servers as a part of its offerings. Also, Oracle should continue to grow its percentage of market share. This pattern of acquisitions probably will contribute to the slow decline of IBM as the premier leader of software and hardware.

I am less sure that Oracle truly has the speed advantage over IBM OR that this speed advantage is that relevant to most of the Oracle and IBM clients. For those who think that numbers alone are the final argument, I would offer up this saying popularized by Mark Twain - "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."