If I had a billion dollars…

What, that Oracle news wasn’t big enough for you? Okay, here’s a big story with a big number, perhaps the last threshold in the microeconomy: one billon. Sure, in big business today dealing with wacky currencies and European Union programs, we hear the word “billion” bandied about frequently, but it’s still a pretty big number. How much is it? If you start counting now, I’ll see you in about 32 years, sometime after you’ve probably realized the enormity of the number. Oracle has announced that Oracle Fusion Middleware has passed US $1 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2006. In quarter four of fiscal 2006, Oracle Fusion Middleware license revenue grew 57 percent year over last year.

For the entire fiscal year, Oracle Fusion Middleware grew 34.5 percent year over year in license revenue. Training, education and other services revenue associated with Oracle Fusion Middleware are incremental to this total product revenue. Oracle Fusion Middleware surpassed 31,000 cumulative customers during fiscal year 2006. "Oracle Fusion Middleware is one of our most exciting success stories,” said the Oracle president himself, Charles Phillips, going on to point out that “Five years ago we weren’t in this business."

Phillips (and his numbers) indicate that Oracle is capturing market share faster than any other player in the industry and that nearly half of Oracle’s middleware revenue during fiscal year 2006 came from partners, which, in Phillips’ view “demonstrate[es] the strength of Oracle’s middleware product with developers and systems integrators.”