Bob Miner

Cofounder of Oracle

• Born: December 23, 1941
• Birthplace: Cicero, Illinois
• Died: November 11, 1994
• Place of death: San Francisco, California

Primary Company/Organization: Oracle

Introduction

The cofounder of Oracle Corporation, which popularized and dominated the market for relational database management systems, Bob Miner met cofounder Larry Ellison while supervising him at Ampex in the 1970s. At Oracle, Miner was in charge of product development from 1977 to 1992. He retired a year later after receiving a diagnosis of cancer.

Early Life

Robert Nimrod Miner was born on December 23, 1941, in Cicero, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His parents were both Assyrian immigrants from northwest Iran. He majored in mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1963. He took a job at Ampex, an electronics company that principally manufactured professional tape recorders (and introduced instant replay and electronic video editing) but also developed customized database programs. At Ampex, Miner met Larry Ellison, whom he supervised. Together with fellow Ampex employee Ed Oates, Miner and Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL), which eventually became Oracle Systems, named for its Oracle Database product.

Life's Work

Software Development Laboratories was incorporated on June 16, 1977, in Santa Clara, California, and the first version of Oracle was released in 1978. Named for a project for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on which the SDL founders had worked at Ampex, Oracle was designed to be a relational database to sell to that project. Bruce Scott joined as the fourth partner, and the cofounders pooled together $2,000 in start-up funding and rented an office in Belmont, California. Miner and Ellison had contacts at the CIA and were able to persuade the CIA to give them the $50,000 contract to develop the database.

The idea of a relational database had been introduced by Ted Codd, a mathematical programmer at IBM, in “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.” The paper was published in 1970 after an earlier draft circulated internally at IBM. Seven years had passed, and IBM had yet to release, or apparently even develop, a relational database; it seemed the commercial possibilities had eluded them, and SDL moved forward to capitalize on their neglect. Miner and Ellison had read and discussed the paper and predicted that if IBM did move forward in developing relational databases, IBM would incorporate them—and the structured query language (SQL) that it had developed—into future mainframes but not minicomputers (which were smaller than mainframes but still huge compared to the personal computers that would eventually dominate). As opposed to a flat database (in which all fields are located in a single text file with fields delineated by character strings, thus requiring awkward and time-consuming searches to find related data), a relational database makes it possible to sort multiple types of data by any field, compiling multiple fields on the basis of queries that create tailored tables. Relational databases thus allow users to match data stored in the database according to specified common characteristics, or relations. While there are many business applications, the appeal to the CIA was the ability to automate the process of searching through their numerous files looking for patterns that might be relevant to the work at hand.

While Ellison was business-minded and developed a distinctive culture at Oracle, Miner took charge of developing the company's database products. The two frequently clashed over issues of workplace culture, Miner objecting to Ellison's insistence on keeping the programmers working late. While Ellison aggressively courted clients, Miner oversaw the advances in software development and code.

The CIA project never went anywhere, although it did generate anecdotes the partners would tell at various gatherings when they later became famous for their private sector work. The first release of Oracle was called version 2, which was Ellison's innovation—he was afraid people would not take a chance on the software if they knew it was the first release. Miner did much of the work on version 2, and the subsequent release, version 3, was almost entirely his work.

Miner continued to head product development of Oracle's database systems from the inception of the company until shortly before his retirement. When Oracle faced financial troubles in 1990 following a lawsuit filed by shareholders over possible accounting errors, the company was shaken up internally, with many on the board calling for the eccentric Ellison's resignation and a domestic subsidiary formed to address management concerns. Miner, who never enjoyed those kinds of conflicts, wanted to sell his shares and cash out, but he was persuaded to remain. Instead, shortly after in 1992, Miner began an advanced technology group in Oracle, handing over the product development reins. He retired the following year because of illness.

Personal Life

Miner and his wife Mary had three children, Nicola, Justine, and Luke. He purchased Oakville Ranch Vineyards in 1989, which is now managed by his nephew Dave, who produces Miner Family Vineyards wine. One of their red wines is called The Oracle.

Miner was diagnosed in 1993 with lung cancer as the result of exposure to asbestos and resigned from Oracle's board of directors. He died on November 11, 1994, in San Francisco, at the age of fifty-two.

Bibliography

Codd, E. F. “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.” Communications of the ACM 13.6 (1970): n. pag. Print. Ted Codd's original paper introducing the concept of the relational database, on which Oracle was based.

Cringely, Robert X. Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date. New York: HarperBusiness, 1996. Print. A history of Silicon valley from before the dot-com bubble burst.

Kenney, Martin. Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000. Print. An overview of Silicon Valley, the culture from which Oracle emerged.

Rao, Arun, and Piero Scarulfi. A History of Silicon Valley. San Francisco: Omniware, 2011. Print. An overview of the Silicon Valley tech company culture.

Symonds, Matthew. Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle. New York: Simon, 2003. Print. As the title indicates, the focus is on Ellison's distinctive managerial style and personality, but Miner and Oates also are heavily featured.

Wilson, Mike. The Difference between God and Larry Ellison (God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison): Inside Oracle Corporation. New York: William Morrow, 1997. Print. Ellison-centric, but the other partners at Oracle also receive significant coverage.