My experiences with Oracle date back to the early eighties, when the database ran only on DEC's VAX system, and the company was working with AT&T to port the system to Unix. At that time, Oracle's chief software developer lived in a cabin in the woods somewhere in the northwest, and phoned in his work to the Silicon Valley company.
My Irish boss, Frank, used to get Larry Ellison on the phone weekly and scream at him about the all the problems we were having with the beta Unix port of Oracle.
Twenty years later, Oracle has run out of steam. Like IBM, the company seems to have run out of intellectual capital, and so has given up innovation and bought an applications company.
Oracle's been in trouble for a while. Like Microsoft, they had a virtual monopoly in their product space through the eighties and nineties, but have not been able to develop a strategy to deal with the increasing robustness and high quality of Open Source database systems like mySQL and Postgres. These free database systems have been quietly trimming Oracle's customer base, and it's largely Oracle's fault. The company became fat and happy charging high prices for its products when there was little competition, and any customer who could make the switch to an Open Source product has either done so already or is seriously considering it.
Instead of innovating, changing its price structure, or competing on service, Oracle has effectively given up and bought an entirely different business. Oracle is going to go away, but the company is likely to lose focus as it tries to be both a database company and a software application company. The move will accelerate the loss of customers for its database product, and like IBM, there will likely come a time when Oracle will regret the decision.