Why is Oracle worth $260B? (opens in new tab)

(retool.com)

63 pointsgagejustins4y ago21 comments

21 comments

Hello everyone, author here. I wrote this post after wondering why Oracle is such a ubiquitous name, but almost no developers I've worked with have ever used it. After some research and conversations with a former employee, it turns out that the story is really interesting: Oracle was basically the first company to commercialize a RDBMS. And today they have what might be the fastest, most performant database at scale – if you're willing to pay for it.

hindsightbias4y ago

The intersection of HN and Enterprise developers on a venn diagram, anecdata aside, is not very large.

gregjor4y ago

That’s putting it mildly. Developers who don’t know about Oracle and enterprise-scale databases are like car designers who haven’t heard of Ford.

This is why HN teems with NoSQL database nonsense and ideas like 100K rows is a scaling problem.

derwiki4y ago

IBM worked on an RDBMS in 1974, and Honeywell released a commercial RDBMS in 1976* before Oracle launched.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics_Relational_Data_Store

gagejustinsOP4y ago

Weird, everything I've read said the contrary, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/business/edgar-f-codd-79-...

gregjor4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd

samfitz4y ago

We had lots of head to head competes with oracle when I was working at a rival big-tech company in sales. We would schedule a few calls, maybe send a salesperson on-site. Oracle would send 5-6 people across the country for an on-site discovery (seemingly, from an outside perspective) very often. They've always had a ton of resources and aren't afraid to use them, and are the pinnacle of old-school tech sales strategies.

reneeshah4y ago

Which of the newer players are most likely to chip away at Oracle's market share?

gregjor4y ago

Oracle competes in the database realm with Microsoft (SQL Server) and IBM (DB/2). Oracle owns MySQL. PostgreSQL and MySQL are widely used but not considered enterprise-scale.

Big companies build their software around the database, so once they have committed to a database vendor they are pretty well locked in. I don’t see any newer players directly competing with Oracle, but there are always competing products aimed at specific requirements.

Besides the database server Oracle also sells enterprise software applications. So do Microsoft, IBM, HPE, etc. Salesforce (founded by a former Oracle exec) is an example of a new-ish competitor. Salesforce of course uses Oracle.

gagejustinsOP4y ago

I would also add: 1. new SQL entrants: PlanetScale, Cockroach 2. PaaS SQL: Spanner, Aurora

asmyers17934y ago

Oracle is the definition of a company that remains huge but hasn't done well offering cloud services, but has a stock that's up 153% over the past five years. Databases are sticky!

gregjor4y ago

Databases have more business value and stickiness than application code. A company may keep its Oracle database for decades while replacing application code multiple times.

lord_sudo4y ago

Woah! I never realized that Oracle was such an aggressive company. I always thought they were just good ol' boring enterprise software business.

greenail4y ago

I wonder what folks think of OCI? Does it have a chance to compete against AWS and M$ ?

gagejustinsOP4y ago

From what I'm told, they've been pushing it very aggressively to existing customers, and growth has been slowing over the past few quarters. Pretty impressive all in all, given they had to start from scratch fairly recently

greenail4y ago

sure, existing customer using OCI is a natural fit but why would an existing AWS or M$ customer move over there without any legacy?

borski4y ago

As much as I hate Oracle, it is damn fast.

jwithington4y ago

Is it because the discounted value of all future cash flows is $260B?

jaren4y ago

Larry da big OG

yuppie_scum4y ago

Oracle sucks.

zlwaterfield4y ago

Damn

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

21 comments

gagejustinsOP4y ago

hindsightbias4y ago

The intersection of HN and Enterprise developers on a venn diagram, anecdata aside, is not very large.

gregjor4y ago

That’s putting it mildly. Developers who don’t know about Oracle and enterprise-scale databases are like car designers who haven’t heard of Ford.

This is why HN teems with NoSQL database nonsense and ideas like 100K rows is a scaling problem.

derwiki4y ago

IBM worked on an RDBMS in 1974, and Honeywell released a commercial RDBMS in 1976* before Oracle launched.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics_Relational_Data_Store

gagejustinsOP4y ago

Weird, everything I've read said the contrary, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/business/edgar-f-codd-79-...

gregjor4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd

samfitz4y ago

reneeshah4y ago

Which of the newer players are most likely to chip away at Oracle's market share?

gregjor4y ago

Oracle competes in the database realm with Microsoft (SQL Server) and IBM (DB/2). Oracle owns MySQL. PostgreSQL and MySQL are widely used but not considered enterprise-scale.

gagejustinsOP4y ago

I would also add: 1. new SQL entrants: PlanetScale, Cockroach 2. PaaS SQL: Spanner, Aurora

asmyers17934y ago

Oracle is the definition of a company that remains huge but hasn't done well offering cloud services, but has a stock that's up 153% over the past five years. Databases are sticky!

gregjor4y ago

Databases have more business value and stickiness than application code. A company may keep its Oracle database for decades while replacing application code multiple times.

lord_sudo4y ago

Woah! I never realized that Oracle was such an aggressive company. I always thought they were just good ol' boring enterprise software business.

greenail4y ago

I wonder what folks think of OCI? Does it have a chance to compete against AWS and M$ ?

gagejustinsOP4y ago

greenail4y ago

sure, existing customer using OCI is a natural fit but why would an existing AWS or M$ customer move over there without any legacy?

borski4y ago

As much as I hate Oracle, it is damn fast.

jwithington4y ago

Is it because the discounted value of all future cash flows is $260B?

jaren4y ago

Larry da big OG

yuppie_scum4y ago

Oracle sucks.

zlwaterfield4y ago

Damn

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse