Businessweek

Oracle Corporation engages in the development, manufacture, marketing, distribution, hosting, and servicing of database and middleware software, applications software, and hardware systems, consisting primarily of computer server and storage products worldwide. The company also provides hardware products and services. Operations The company is organized into three businesses: Software, Hardware Systems, and Services. SOFTWARE The Software business comprises two operating segments, New Software Licenses and Software License Updates and Product Support. New Software Licenses The New Software Licenses segment primarily includes the licensing of database and middleware software, as well as applications software. The company’s software products are designed to operate on both single server and clustered server configurations for on-premise or cloud computing information technology (IT) environments and to support a choice of operating systems, including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Microsoft Windows, and third party UNIX products. Database and Middleware Software The company’s database and middleware software provide a range of offerings that are designed to provide a platform for running and managing business applications for midsize businesses, as well as large, global enterprises. Its software is designed to accommodate demanding, non-stop business environments using clustered middleware and database servers and storage. These clusters are designed to scale incrementally as required to address its customers’ IT capacity, satisfy their planning and procurement needs, support their business applications with a standardized platform architecture, reduce their risk of data loss and IT infrastructure downtime and utilize available IT resources to meet quality of service expectations. Database Software Oracle Database software is the enterprise database software. It is designed to enable storage, retrieval, and manipulation of various forms of data, including transactional data, business information, and analytics; semi-structured and unstructured data in the form of weblogs, text, social media feeds, XML files, office documents, images, video and spatial images; and other specialized forms of data, such as human genomic and medical data. Oracle Database software is used for various purposes, including packaged applications, custom application development, online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, data warehousing, and business intelligence (BI), and as a document repository or specialized data store. Oracle Database software is available in four editions: Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Standard Edition One, and Express Edition. Its database software can scale from small, single processor servers to clusters of multi-processor servers and its Oracle Exadata Database Machines. The company also offers customers in-memory database software, including Oracle TimesTen In-Memory, an in-memory database, and Oracle In-Memory Database Cache. Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database is designed to deliver real-time data management and transaction processing speeds for performance-critical applications, from complex analytical queries and speed-of-thought data visualization, to mission-critical, industry-specific applications, such as call centers, trading platforms, reservation systems, and smart meters. Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database supports multiple computing platforms, is compatible with Oracle Database software, and can work as a standalone database at the applications tier. Oracle In-Memory Database Cache acts as a cache for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition and is used to provide immediate access to historical data in existing Oracle Databases that are frequently accessed, such as customer and user lists, open orders, and product catalogs. The company offers various optional add-on products with Oracle Database Enterprise Edition software to address specific customer requirements. In the areas of performance and scalability, the company offers Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Advanced Compression, and Oracle Partitioning software options. In the area of data security, the c