I just can’t seem to comprehend how Oracle can be so wealthy off of making a database when it’s theoretically easy for a company to store its own information.
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Spreadsheets are useful for analysis of data that has been filtered and aggregated. Think hundreds or maybe a couple thousand rows that probably contain only the columns you’re interested in. Ex: you have a certain timeframe of sales data and want to calculate or visualize some key metrics, build a few charts, etc. It’s more of a reporting tool that a data storage tool.
A database is a data storage solution. You’re generally using software to interact with the database. Not a DB client, but software that provides features you need and uses the DB as it’s data store (Ex: sales or inventory software, or this Reddit app you’re using to read this). The DB can store much more data (millions of rows or more), organize/structure the data (tables, keys, joins), facilitate efficient retrieval, can be backed up/replicated for high availability and disaster recovery, provide security features and the list goes on.
At the enterprise level you’re looking at many systems like ERP, CRM, manufacturing, HR and more that all use their own DB to store data. Data in the DB would be structured in a way that is useful for the software but probably not so much for a human to interpret. Then you may have some reporting layer of software that allows aggregation of all of this data, to get it into a more human readable form. Then the output of the reporting layer ends up in excel and a bunch of business analysts and managers sit in a meeting looking at it.
Oracle is just one vendor that provides a DB solution (as well as many other software products). There are many other flavors of DBs, some that are free and some that aren’t. Oracle has a big footprint in the enterprise space. A lot of systems are designed to integrate with Oracle as the DB. Large companies have a lot at stake with data storage and trust Oracle to provide support and reliability.
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