In October, 2012, Oracle's biggest rival, SAP, introduced a new database called HANA.
Ellison treated the news with his typical rival-bashing bravado. During a quarterly conference call with analysts, he said:
"When SAP, and, specifically Hasso Plattner, said they're going to build this in-memory database and compete with Oracle, I said. God, get me the name of that pharmacist, they must be on drugs."