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I've never understood why Oracle was so highly valued by Wall St. Databases have always had FLOSS alternatives. So how did an expensive proprietary solution (wi

I've never understood why Oracle was so highly valued by Wall St. Databases have always had FLOSS alternatives. So how did an expensive proprietary solution (with lots of closed and open competitors) become so all-powerful and valuable? On a related note: anybody on here want to work on some kind of innovative enterprise database startup? (I don't have any ideas, I just want to work on one because I see a lot of potential).

50CNT 10y ago
Salesmanship i guess.
rlucas 10y ago
Oracle hasn't been a "database" company for a long, long time now. (You can license the RDBMS but that's not the real business.) Yes, they have a very robust database. But what they've been selling to enterprises for at least 20 years is better thought of as ... schema. When you buy Oracle Financials (or whatever modules / pieces / etc.) what you're buying is "how to set up and run your business." All of the non-physical parts of your business operations are now entities inside Oracle SW (and, as it happens, stored in the Oracle RDBMS, too, but that's practically speaking irrelevant). Once you're "on" Oracle, or SAP, or whatever, every invoice you send out exists only because it's in that software. The software is your system of record, your single point of truth for your whole enterprise. You might think you are physically a human employee or a box of nuts but if you're not entered into Oracle with a row ID, you don't exist. So, yeah, Oracle has an RDBMS. But what they really have is the "operating system" or the "schema" of a large enterprise which otherwise would have to rely upon a vast pyramid of specialist operational knowledge (bureaucrats / paper pushers / functionaries) in order to know how invoices got approved, sent, dunned, paid, reconciled, etc., or how orders got quoted, approved, picked, packed, shipped, etc. (Not meant to sound condescending; I certainly wouldn't have known had I not spent some time seeing Oracle deployed in real life. It was certainly super-instructive for me to have spent a summer during college working for a midsize enterprise on Oracle, in a role kind of bridging ops and IT, and seeing what it really did. No SELECT statements involved.)
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  Fantastic explanation. Thanks. What are some promising open source efforts out there to create such a universal schema?
  - GFischer 10y ago
    I'm not sure if the open source model lends itself to such a thing. (I'm thinking along the lines of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
  - gvb 10y ago
    Odoo, formerly known as OpenERP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoo
    - hackaflocka 10y ago
      I also found webERP.org
laurentoget 10y ago
Not sure we qualify as a startup anymore, but if you are into innovative enterprise databases, LogicBlox is hiring: http://www.logicblox.com/us/#career-anchor http://www.logicblox.com/us/#career-anchor
peterwwillis 10y ago
> Databases have always had FLOSS alternatives. Relational databases have had [technically] open-source alternatives from the beginning, you're right. But they were also always playing catch-up to commercial databases. Oracle supported SQL long before Ingres, making them the lead product at the very beginning, and their services and support (and superior marketing power) kept them at the forefront. Corporate or military investment is usually what drives cutting edge technology, which is adopted by necessity. > anybody on here want to work on some kind of innovative enterprise database startup? (I don't have any ideas, I just want to work on one because I see a lot of potential) Find out what a huge corporate product is lacking, make that, and then get them to buy you.
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  (Why'd you delete the bit about "best HN pitch ever" -- that was hilarious). On your point about Military / Govt applications. This Larry biography: "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison" This book is an insanely amazing read. Apparently, the CIA was one of their first clients, and Oracle was named after a failed CIA project (the book hints that Larry might actually be CIA)
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    I don't know what position he might have held, but i've known people who worked for the intelligence community. Saying someone "is CIA" is like saying someone "is Boeing". It's just another corporation (often informally called the corporation)

50CNT 10y ago

Salesmanship i guess.

rlucas 10y ago

Oracle hasn't been a "database" company for a long, long time now. (You can license the RDBMS but that's not the real business.) Yes, they have a very robust database. But what they've been selling to enterprises for at least 20 years is better thought of as ... schema. When you buy Oracle Financials (or whatever modules / pieces / etc.) what you're buying is "how to set up and run your business." All of the non-physical parts of your business operations are now entities inside Oracle SW (and, as it happens, stored in the Oracle RDBMS, too, but that's practically speaking irrelevant). Once you're "on" Oracle, or SAP, or whatever, every invoice you send out exists only because it's in that software. The software is your system of record, your single point of truth for your whole enterprise. You might think you are physically a human employee or a box of nuts but if you're not entered into Oracle with a row ID, you don't exist. So, yeah, Oracle has an RDBMS. But what they really have is the "operating system" or the "schema" of a large enterprise which otherwise would have to rely upon a vast pyramid of specialist operational knowledge (bureaucrats / paper pushers / functionaries) in order to know how invoices got approved, sent, dunned, paid, reconciled, etc., or how orders got quoted, approved, picked, packed, shipped, etc. (Not meant to sound condescending; I certainly wouldn't have known had I not spent some time seeing Oracle deployed in real life. It was certainly super-instructive for me to have spent a summer during college working for a midsize enterprise on Oracle, in a role kind of bridging ops and IT, and seeing what it really did. No SELECT statements involved.)

hackaflocka 10y ago
Fantastic explanation. Thanks. What are some promising open source efforts out there to create such a universal schema?
- GFischer 10y ago
  I'm not sure if the open source model lends itself to such a thing. (I'm thinking along the lines of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
- gvb 10y ago
  Odoo, formerly known as OpenERP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoo
  - hackaflocka 10y ago
    I also found webERP.org

laurentoget 10y ago

Not sure we qualify as a startup anymore, but if you are into innovative enterprise databases, LogicBlox is hiring: http://www.logicblox.com/us/#career-anchor http://www.logicblox.com/us/#career-anchor

peterwwillis 10y ago

> Databases have always had FLOSS alternatives. Relational databases have had [technically] open-source alternatives from the beginning, you're right. But they were also always playing catch-up to commercial databases. Oracle supported SQL long before Ingres, making them the lead product at the very beginning, and their services and support (and superior marketing power) kept them at the forefront. Corporate or military investment is usually what drives cutting edge technology, which is adopted by necessity. > anybody on here want to work on some kind of innovative enterprise database startup? (I don't have any ideas, I just want to work on one because I see a lot of potential) Find out what a huge corporate product is lacking, make that, and then get them to buy you.

hackaflocka 10y ago
(Why'd you delete the bit about "best HN pitch ever" -- that was hilarious). On your point about Military / Govt applications. This Larry biography: "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison" This book is an insanely amazing read. Apparently, the CIA was one of their first clients, and Oracle was named after a failed CIA project (the book hints that Larry might actually be CIA)
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  I don't know what position he might have held, but i've known people who worked for the intelligence community. Saying someone "is CIA" is like saying someone "is Boeing". It's just another corporation (often informally called the corporation)