How Oracle Grew
In 1983, Relational Software Incorporated was renamed Oracle Corporation to avoid
confusion with a competitor named Relational Technologies Incorporated. At this
time, the developers made a critical decision to create a portable version of Oracle
6 | Chapter 1: Introducing Oracle
written in C (version 3) that ran not only on Digital VAX/VMS systems, but also on
Unix and other platforms. By 1985, Oracle claimed the ability to run on more than
30 platforms. Some of these platforms are historical curiosities today, but others
remain in use. (In addition to VMS, early operating systems supported by Oracle
included IBM MVS, HP/UX, IBM AIX, and Sun??™s Solaris version of Unix.) Oracle
was able to leverage and accelerate the growth of minicomputers and Unix servers in
the 1980s. Today, Oracle also leverages this portability to operating systems such as
Microsoft Windows and Linux.
In addition to multiple platform support, other core Oracle messages from the mid-
1980s still ring true today, including complementary software development and
decision support (business intelligence) tools, ANSI standard SQL across platforms,
and connectivity over standard networks.
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