Founding of Software Development Laboratories (SDL)

Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates founded SDL with the goal of developing a relational database system, directly inspired by Edgar F. Codd's research. Their initial contract, known as 'Project Oracle,' was for the CIA.

Significance

This was the foundational moment for Oracle. Their immediate goal was to capitalize on Codd's revolutionary work, which IBM was conspicuously slow to commercialize, recognizing a massive, untouched market opportunity for relational data management.