Oracle Corporation was co-founded by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates as Software Development Laboratories in 1977.
The founders pursued commercial opportunities in relational database software after reading research associated with IBM scientist Edgar F. Codd. Their first major product was based on the relational database model, which organizes information into tables and allows structured queries.
The company changed its name to Relational Software, Inc. in 1979 and then to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. It later became Oracle Corporation. Database software remained central to Oracle’s business, while cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, and hardware expanded its role in corporate technology.
Oracle is often confused with the Oracle Database product. Oracle Corporation is the publicly traded company; Oracle Database is one of its flagship software products.