Oracle 1977
In June 1970 Dr E. F. Codd published a paper on “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” This groundbreaking paper created a storm of interest, and a large amount of research on relational databases was done in the early 1970s. By 1974 IBM had created a prototype of a relational database called System/R, and the project included significant work on a database query language, at that time called Structured English Query Language (SEQUEL), which was later shortened to Structured Query Language (SQL).

Larry Ellison, who was following this project, decided to commercialise the idea. His partners, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, realized there was great potential in relational databases, but had no idea the model would revolutionize computing. In 1977 they set up a company called Relational Software Inc., and in 1979 released the first commercial SQL relational database management system (RDBMS).