Oracle8i The Complete Reference by Kevin Loney nad George Koch pdf

I first encountered Oracle in 1982, in the process of evaluating database
management systems for a major commercial application that my company
was preparing to design and build. At its conclusion, our evaluation was
characterized inComputerWorldas the single-most “grueling” study of DBMSs
that had ever been conducted. The study was so tough on the vendors whose
products we examined that word of it made the press as far away as New Zealand, and

publications as far afield as the Christian Science Monitor.
We began the study with 108 candidate companies, then narrowed the field to sixteen
finalists, including most of the major database vendors of the time, and all types of databases:
network, hierarchical, relational, and others. After the rigorous final round of questions,
two of the major vendors participating asked that the results of the study of their products
never be published. A salesman from a third vendor quit his job at the end of one of the
sessions. We knew how to ask tough questions.
Oracle, known then as Relational Software, Inc., had fewer than 25 employees at the
time, and only a few major accounts. Nevertheless, when the study was completed, we
announced Oracle as the winner. We declared that Oracle was technically the best product
on the market, and that the management team at RSI looked capable enough to carry the
company forward successfully. Our radical proclamation was made at a time when few people
even knew what the term “relational” meant, and those who did had very few positive
things to say about it. Many IS exectives loudly criticized our conclusions and predicted that
Oracle and the relational database would go nowhere.