Oracle Labs (formerly Sun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs) is a

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

branch of

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

. The labs were created when Oracle acquired

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. Sun Labs was established in 1990 by

Ivan Sutherland Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...

and Robert Sproull. The initial locations were in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

and

Burlington, Massachusetts Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, York ...

, United States. Oracle Labs has locations in

Redwood Shores, California Redwood Shores is a waterfront community in Redwood City, California, along the western shore of San Francisco Bay on the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. Redwood Shores is the home of several major technology companies, including O ...

;

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, UK;

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Australia;

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

, Austria;

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, Switzerland; and

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

, Morocco.

Sun

Sun Labs worked in areas such as

asynchronous circuit Asynchronous circuit (clockless or self-timed circuit) is a sequential logic, sequential digital logic electrical network, circuit that does not use a global clock circuit or clock signal, signal generator to synchronize its components. Instea ...

optical communications Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date b ...

, new

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

technologies,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

technologies, and

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

James G. Mitchell James George Mitchell is a Canadian computer scientist. He has worked on programming language design and implementation ( FORTRAN WATFOR, Mesa, Euclid, C++, Java), interactive programming systems, dynamic interpreting and compiling, document p ...

directed the labs starting in 2000. When asked in 2007 why Sun continued to put resources into research as the market turned to commodity pricing, chief executive

Jonathan I. Schwartz Jonathan Ian Schwartz (born October 20, 1965) is an American businessman. He is president and CEO of CareZone, a firm intending to lower the price of prescription drugs for people with chronic illness. Before founding CareZone, Schwartz had a ...

said, "You need to spend enormous amounts of money to differentiate."

Oracle

In 2010 after Sun was purchased by

, it became Oracle Labs. Sproull was director. He was appointed in June 2006.

References

External links

* {{Sun Microsystems Organizations established in 1990 Sun Microsystems Research organizations in the United States Information technology organizations Information technology places Buildings and structures in San Mateo County, California Burlington, Massachusetts Menlo Park, California