> Ampex was developing a giant database for the CIA, and Ellison was assigned to the project, along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates. The CIA's codename for the proj

> Ampex was developing a giant database for the CIA, and Ellison was assigned to the project, along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates. The CIA's codename for the project was Oracle. The project was something of a disaster, but it led eventually to the formation of Oracle Corporation and its current hugely successful range of databases. And in the same way that Apple based its Macintosh range of personal computers on original research done at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre (Parc), Oracle's hugely successful "relational databases" were inspired by an idea developed by IBM.