Airbus

Airbus S.A.S. better known as simply Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is the world's largest commercial aircraft manufacturer.

It was incorporated in 2001 under French law as a simplified joint stock company or "S.A.S." (Société par Actions Simplifiée). Airbus was formerly known as Airbus Industrie and is commonly just named Airbus. The name is pronounced /ˈɛəbʌs/ in British English (note the lack of "r"), /ɛʀbys/ in standard French (note the "u" pronounced /y/), and /ˈɛːɐbʊs/ in German.

Airbus is jointly held by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%), Europe's two largest military suppliers and manufacturers. As of 2005, its CEO is Gustav Humbert. Airbus employs around 52,000 people in several European countries. Final assembly is carried out in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany, although construction occurs at a number of plants across Europe.

The main competitor of Airbus is Boeing, with which it fights an intense commercial and political war.

History

Airbus Industrie began as a consortium of European aviation firms to compete with American companies such as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. In the 1960s European aircraft manufacturers competed with each other as much as the American giants. In the mid-1960s tentative negotiations commenced regarding a European collaborative approach began.

In September 1967 the British, French and German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to start development of the 300 seat Airbus A300. This was the second major joint aircraft programme in Europe, following the Concorde, for which no ongoing consortium was devised. An earlier announcement had been made in July 1967 but had been complicated by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). The British government refused to back its proposed competitor, a development of the BAC 1-11 and instead supported the Airbus aircraft.

In the months following this agreement both the French and British governments expressed doubts about the aircraft. Another problem was the requirement for a new engine (to be developed by Rolls-Royce, the RB207). In December 1968 the French and British partner companies, Sud Aviation and Hawker Siddeley proposed a revised configuration, the 250 seat Airbus A250. Renamed the A300B the aircraft would not require new engines, reducing development costs.

In 1969 the British government shocked its partners by withdrawing from the project. Given the participation by Hawker Siddeley up to that point, France and Germany were reluctant to take over their wing design. Thus the British company was allowed to continue as a major subcontractor.

Airbus formed

Airbus Industrie was formally set up in 1970 following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France) and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany) (joined by CASA of Spain in 1971). Each company would deliver its sections as fully equipped, ready to fly items. The name "Airbus" was taken from a non-proprietary term used by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a certain size and range, for this term was acceptable to the French linguistically.

In 1972 the A300 made its maiden flight and the first production model, the A300B2 entered service in 1974. Initially the success of the consortium was poor but by 1979 there were 81 aircraft in service. It was the launch of the A320 in 1981 that guaranteed Airbus as a major player in the aircraft market - the aircraft had over 400 orders before it first flew, compared to 15 for the A300 in 1972.

It was a fairly loose alliance but that changed in 2000 when DASA, Aerospatiale and CASA merged to form EADS and in 2001 when BAE and EADS formed the Airbus Integrated Company to coincide with the development of the new Airbus A380, which will seat 555 passengers and be the world's largest commercial passenger jet when it enters service in 2006.

On April 27, 2005, the A380 successfully completed its maiden flight in Toulouse, France. The flight lasted almost four hours, the plane taking off from Toulouse Blagnac Airport at 08:29 UTC (10:29 a.m. local time), going west towards the Atlantic Ocean, turning around above the ocean, flying above the Pyrenees mountains, and landing at Toulouse Blagnac Airport at 12:23 UTC (2:23 p.m. local time). The crew was made up of French test pilots Jacques Rosay (captain for the take-off and the initial part of the test flight) and Claude Lelaie (captain for the second part of the test flight including the landing), as well as three flight test engineers (Spanish, French, and German), and one French test flight engineer. With the recent Franco-German controversy over the leadership of EADS still fresh in mind, Airbus issued a statement to make it clear that the crew had been chosen not based on nationality, but based on competence. Test flights are due to continue until mid-2006.

Civilian products

The Airbus product line started with the A300, the world's first twin-aisle, twin-engined aircraft. A shorter variant of the A300 is known as the A310. Building on its success, Airbus launched the A320 with its innovative fly-by-wire control system. The A320 was a great commercial success. The A318 and A319 are shorter derivatives with some of the latter under construction for the corporate biz-jet market (Airbus Corporate Jet). A stretched version is known as the A321 and is proving competitive with later models of the Boeing 737.

The longer range products, the twin-jet A330 and the four-jet A340, have efficient wings, enhanced by winglets. The Airbus A340-500 has an operating range of 16,700 kilometres (9000 nautical miles), the second longest range of any commercial jet after the Boeing 777-200LR (range of 17,446 km or 9420 nautical miles). These are competing strongly with the equivalent Boeing products and may partly explain the cessation of airliner production at Lockheed in 1983 and the take-over of McDonnell Douglas by the surviving US builder of long-distance airliners, Boeing, in 1996-1997. The company is particularly proud of its use of fly-by-wire technologies and the common cockpit and systems in use throughout the aircraft family, which make it much easier to train crew.

Military products

The Airbus A400M

In January 1999 Airbus established a separate company, Airbus Military S.A.S., to undertake development and production of a turboprop powered military transport aircraft (the Airbus Military A400M.) The A400M is being developed by several NATO members, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, as an alternative to the C-130 Hercules. Expansion in the military aircraft market will reduce, but not negate, Airbus' exposure to the effects of cyclical downturns in civil aviation.

Airbus A400M
A310 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport)
A330 MRTT

Competition with Boeing

An Airbus A320 from Finnair

In 2003, for the first time in its 33-year history, Airbus delivered more jet-powered airliners than Boeing. Boeing states that the Boeing 777 has outsold its Airbus counterparts, which include the A340 family as well as the A330-300. The smaller A330-200 competes with the 767, outselling its Boeing counterpart, but it is speculated that the introduction of the 787 may improve Boeing's market share in this segment. The A380 is anticipated to further reduce sales of the Boeing 747, gaining Airbus a share of the market in very large aircraft.

Currently there are around 3,800 Airbus aircraft in service, with Airbus winning more than 50 per cent of aircraft orders in recent years. But Airbus products are still outnumbered 6 to 1 by in-service Boeings (there are over 4,000 Boeing 737s alone in service, for example). This however is indicative of historical success - Airbus made a late entry into the modern jet airliner market (1972 vs. 1958 for Boeing). Airbus won a greater share of orders and delivered more aircraft in 2003 and 2004.

At the aircraft show in Le Bourget in June 2005, Airbus outperformed Boeing in aeroplane sales. Airbus has contracted for the sale of 280 airliners with a contract price of 34 billion dollars, whereas Boeing received orders for 146 aeroplanes priced in total with 15 billion dollars.

Subsidies

Boeing has continually protested over "launch aid" for Airbus from the governments of the partner nations, while Airbus has argued that Boeing receives illegal subsidies through military and research contracts and tax breaks.

In July 2004. Harry Stonecipher (Boeing CEO) accused Airbus of abusing a 1992 non-binding agreement covering launch aid. Airbus is given launch aid from European governments with the money being paid back with interest, but only if the plane is a commercial success[1], and contends that this is fully compliant with the 1992 agreement and WTO rules. The agreement allows up to 33 per cent of the programme cost to be met through government loans which are to be fully repaid within 17 years with interest and royalties. These loans are held at a minimum interest rate equal to the cost of government borrowing plus 0.25%, which would be below market rates available to Airbus without government support [2]. Airbus claims that since the signature of the EU-U.S. Agreement in 1992, it has repaid European governments more than U.S.$6.7 billion and that this is 40% more than it has received. [3].

On the other hand Airbus argues that the pork barrel military contracts awarded to Boeing (the second largest U.S. defence contractor) are in effect a form of subsidy (see the Boeing KC-767 military contracting controversy). The significant U.S. government support of technology development via NASA also provides significant support to Boeing, as does the large tax breaks offered to Boeing which some claim are in violation of the 1992 agreement and WTO rules. In its recent products such as the 787, Boeing has also been offered substantial support from local and state governments.

In January 2005 the European Union and United States trade representatives, Peter Mandelson and Robert Zoellick (since replaced by Robert Portman) respectively, agreed to talks aimed at resolving the increasing tensions. These talks were not successful with the dispute becoming more acrimonious rather than approaching a settlement.

WTO litigation

On May 31, 2005 the United States filed a case against the European Union for providing allegedly illegal subsidies to Airbus. 24 hours later the European Union filed a complaint against the United States protesting support for Boeing. [4]

Portman (from the USA) and Mandelson (from the EU) issued a joint statement stating: "We remain united in our determination that this dispute shall not affect our cooperation on wider bilateral and multilateral trade issues. We have worked together well so far, and intend to continue to do so."

Tensions increased by the support for the Airbus A380 have erupted into a potential trade war due to the upcoming launch of the Airbus A350. Airbus would ideally like the A350 programme to be launched with the help of state loans covering a third of the development costs although it has stated it will launch without these loans if required. The A350 will compete with Boeing's most successful project in recent years, the 787 Dreamliner.

EU trade officials are questioning the funding provided by the Japanese Government and Japanese companies as well as some US states for the launch of the 787.

Competition in Japan

The two large Japanese airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, are traditionally loyal Boeing customers, the manufacturer's products accounting for about 90% of their fleets. Both airlines have some Airbus products (A300 for JAL, not ordered by JAL but in the fleet because of the takeover of Japan Air System, and A320/A321 for All Nippon Airways).

However, ANA have started the transition to an all-Boeing fleet after the entry into service of 787 and 737 NG. Significantly, no orders have been taken for the A380 from Japanese airlines, despite the large 747 fleets operated in the country. Airbus has established a branch office in Japan in order to increase the sales efforts. In 2005, a success for Airbus is Sagawa Express' firm order of 1 A300-600F aircraft and 1 option of the same type. [5]

International manufacturing presence

The main Airbus factory in Toulouse lies just next to Toulouse airport.

The two assembly plants of Airbus are in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany.

Airbus, however, has a number of other plants in different European countries, reflecting its foundation as a consortium. An original solution to the problem of moving aircraft parts between the different factories and the assembly plants is the use of "Beluga" specially enlarged jets, capable of carrying entire sections of fuselage of Airbus aircraft. This solution is also being investigated by Boeing, who are considering producing an enlarged version of their 747 aircraft to transport the components of the 7E7. An exception to this scheme is the A380, whose fuselage and wings are too large for sections to be carried by the Beluga. Large A380 parts are brought by ship to Bordeaux, and then transported to the Toulouse assembly plant by a specially enlarged road.

North America is an important region to Airbus in terms of both aircraft sales and suppliers. 2,000 of the total of approximately 5,300 Airbus jetliners sold by Airbus around the world, representing every aircraft in its product line from the 107-seat A318 to the 565-passenger A380, are ordered by North American customers. US contractors supporting an estimated 120,000 jobs earned estimated $5.5 billion (2003) worth of business. For example, the A380 has 51% American content in terms of work share value.

Workforce by countries

(Data as of December 31, 2003)

Workforce by sites

(Data as of December 31, 2003)

¹ Name of the urban/metropolitan area appears first, then in parenthesis are the exact locations of the plants

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¹ Name of the urban/metropolitan area appears first, then in parenthesis are the exact locations of the plants. August 3 2005: Oracle Corporation has announced it would buy a majority stake in India's largest applications software company i-flex solutions in a $909-million (around Rs 3,960 crore at an exchange rate of Rs 43.55 to a dollar) deal. (Data as of December 31, 2003). [3]. (Data as of December 31, 2003). The Oracle Parkway buildings were prominently featured as the futuristic headquarters of fictional company "NorthAm Robotics" in the Robin Williams film Bicentennial Man (1999). For example, the A380 has 51% American content in terms of work share value. Eventually, Oracle purchased the complex and constructed a further four main buildings.

US contractors supporting an estimated 120,000 jobs earned estimated $5.5 billion (2003) worth of business. Oracle Corporation originally leased two buildings from the site, moving its finance and administration departments from the corporation's former headquarters in Menlo Park. 2,000 of the total of approximately 5,300 Airbus jetliners sold by Airbus around the world, representing every aircraft in its product line from the 107-seat A318 to the 565-passenger A380, are ordered by North American customers. Oracle HQ stands on the former site of Marine World, which moved from Redwood Shores to Vallejo in 1986. North America is an important region to Airbus in terms of both aircraft sales and suppliers. Oracle Corporation has its world headquarters on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Redwood Shores area of Redwood City, adjacent to Belmont, near San Carlos Airport (SQL). Large A380 parts are brought by ship to Bordeaux, and then transported to the Toulouse assembly plant by a specially enlarged road. (InformationWeek - March, 2005) Competitors include Sybase, IBM, ANTs Software and Microsoft.

An exception to this scheme is the A380, whose fuselage and wings are too large for sections to be carried by the Beluga. In 2004, Oracle's sales grew at a rate of 14.5% to $6.2 billion, giving it 41.3% and the top share of the relational-database market. This solution is also being investigated by Boeing, who are considering producing an enlarged version of their 747 aircraft to transport the components of the 7E7. The slogan was widely critisized as unrealistic, and as an invitation to crackers. An original solution to the problem of moving aircraft parts between the different factories and the assembly plants is the use of "Beluga" specially enlarged jets, capable of carrying entire sections of fuselage of Airbus aircraft. [1] [2]. Airbus, however, has a number of other plants in different European countries, reflecting its foundation as a consortium. The slogan backfired just weeks after its introduction in 2002, as David Litchfield and others demonstrated a whole suite of successful attacks against Oracle products.

The two assembly plants of Airbus are in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany. Oracle Corporation also stresses the reliability of networked databases and network access to databases as major selling points. [5]. This signifies the increasing demands on information safety. In 2005, a success for Airbus is Sagawa Express' firm order of 1 A300-600F aircraft and 1 option of the same type. Oracle markets many of its products using the slogan "can't break it, can't break in". Airbus has established a branch office in Japan in order to increase the sales efforts. User access to these facilities is provided through a browser interface over the internet or corporate intranet.

Significantly, no orders have been taken for the A380 from Japanese airlines, despite the large 747 fleets operated in the country. The Oracle e-Business Suite includes software to perform financial, manufacturing and HR (Human Resource Management Systems) related functions. However, ANA have started the transition to an all-Boeing fleet after the entry into service of 787 and 737 NG. Besides databases, Oracle also sells a suite of business applications. Both airlines have some Airbus products (A300 for JAL, not ordered by JAL but in the fleet because of the takeover of Japan Air System, and A320/A321 for All Nippon Airways). Many external and third-party tools make the Oracle database administrator's tasks easier. The two large Japanese airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, are traditionally loyal Boeing customers, the manufacturer's products accounting for about 90% of their fleets. Oracle Corporation's tools for developing applications include Oracle Designer, Oracle Developer - that consists of Oracle (Web)Forms, Oracle Discoverer and Oracle Reports, Oracle JDeveloper, and several more.

EU trade officials are questioning the funding provided by the Japanese Government and Japanese companies as well as some US states for the launch of the 787. The strong interrelationship between Oracle 10g and Java has enabled the company to allow developers to set up stored procedures written in the Java language, as well as those written in the traditional Oracle database programming language, PL/SQL. The A350 will compete with Boeing's most successful project in recent years, the 787 Dreamliner. The application server is the first middle-tier software designed for grid computing. Airbus would ideally like the A350 programme to be launched with the help of state loans covering a third of the development costs although it has stated it will launch without these loans if required. Oracle Application Server 10g using J2EE comprises the server part of that version of the database, making it possible to deploy web technology applications. Tensions increased by the support for the Airbus A380 have erupted into a potential trade war due to the upcoming launch of the Airbus A350. As of 2004 Oracle Corporation shipped release 10g (g: grid) as the latest version of the Oracle Database.

We have worked together well so far, and intend to continue to do so.". . Portman (from the USA) and Mandelson (from the EU) issued a joint statement stating: "We remain united in our determination that this dispute shall not affect our cooperation on wider bilateral and multilateral trade issues. In 1983, RSI was renamed Oracle Corporation to more closely align itself with its flagship product Oracle database with Howard Johns as senior programmer. [4]. In 1979 SDL changed its name to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI). 24 hours later the European Union filed a complaint against the United States protesting support for Boeing. He founded Oracle in 1977 under the name Software Development Laboratories.

On May 31, 2005 the United States filed a case against the European Union for providing allegedly illegal subsidies to Airbus. He had heard about the IBM System R database, also based on Codd's theories, and wanted Oracle to be compatible with it, but IBM stopped this by keeping the error codes for their DBMS secret. These talks were not successful with the dispute becoming more acrimonious rather than approaching a settlement. Codd on relational database systems named A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. In January 2005 the European Union and United States trade representatives, Peter Mandelson and Robert Zoellick (since replaced by Robert Portman) respectively, agreed to talks aimed at resolving the increasing tensions. Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. In its recent products such as the 787, Boeing has also been offered substantial support from local and state governments. Forbes magazine once adjudged Ellison the richest man in the world.

government support of technology development via NASA also provides significant support to Boeing, as does the large tax breaks offered to Boeing which some claim are in violation of the 1992 agreement and WTO rules. Ellison retains his role as CEO. The significant U.S. Ellison served as the chairman of the board until his replacement by Jeff Henley in 2004. defence contractor) are in effect a form of subsidy (see the Boeing KC-767 military contracting controversy). Ellison (Larry Ellison) has served as Oracle's CEO for several years. On the other hand Airbus argues that the pork barrel military contracts awarded to Boeing (the second largest U.S. Lawrence J.

[3]. As of 2005, it employs over 50,000 worldwide. Agreement in 1992, it has repaid European governments more than U.S.$6.7 billion and that this is 40% more than it has received. Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), one of the major companies developing database management systems, tools for database development, and enterprise resource planning software, dates from 1977 and has offices in more than 145 countries around the world. Airbus claims that since the signature of the EU-U.S. August 26th 2005: Oracle announces that they are joining forces with Sun Microsystems to create database infrastructure packages. These loans are held at a minimum interest rate equal to the cost of government borrowing plus 0.25%, which would be below market rates available to Airbus without government support [2]. August 2nd 2005: Oracle announces that they are acquiring a 61% stake in the Indian banking software company, i-flex.

The agreement allows up to 33 per cent of the programme cost to be met through government loans which are to be fully repaid within 17 years with interest and royalties. June 29, 2005: Oracle announces earnings results that exceed market expectations. Airbus is given launch aid from European governments with the money being paid back with interest, but only if the plane is a commercial success[1], and contends that this is fully compliant with the 1992 agreement and WTO rules. 90% of PeopleSoft product development and product support staff will be retained. Harry Stonecipher (Boeing CEO) accused Airbus of abusing a 1992 non-binding agreement covering launch aid. January 14, 2005: Oracle announces that it will reduce its combined workforce to 50,000, a reduction of approximately 5,000 following the PeopleSoft take over. In July 2004. December 13, 2004: After a long battle over the control of PeopleSoft, Oracle announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share (approximately $10.3 billion).

Boeing has continually protested over "launch aid" for Airbus from the governments of the partner nations, while Airbus has argued that Boeing receives illegal subsidies through military and research contracts and tax breaks. 2004: Oracle 10g released. Airbus has contracted for the sale of 280 airliners with a contract price of 34 billion dollars, whereas Boeing received orders for 146 aeroplanes priced in total with 15 billion dollars. 2001: Ellison announces that Oracle saved $1 billion implementing and using its own business applications. At the aircraft show in Le Bourget in June 2005, Airbus outperformed Boeing in aeroplane sales. June 2000: Oracle9i Application Server released with support for building portals. Airbus won a greater share of orders and delivered more aircraft in 2003 and 2004. May 2000: Oracle announces the Internet File System (iFS).

1958 for Boeing). Oracle 9i released. This however is indicative of historical success - Airbus made a late entry into the modern jet airliner market (1972 vs. 2000: OracleMobile subsidiary founded. But Airbus products are still outnumbered 6 to 1 by in-service Boeings (there are over 4,000 Boeing 737s alone in service, for example). May 1999: Oracle releases JDeveloper 2.0, showcasing Business Components for Java (BC4J), a set of libraries and development tools for building database aware applications. Currently there are around 3,800 Airbus aircraft in service, with Airbus winning more than 50 per cent of aircraft orders in recent years. October 1998: Oracle 8 and Oracle Application Server 4.0 are released on the Linux platform.

The A380 is anticipated to further reduce sales of the Boeing 747, gaining Airbus a share of the market in very large aircraft. September 1998: Oracle 8i is released. The smaller A330-200 competes with the 767, outselling its Boeing counterpart, but it is speculated that the introduction of the 787 may improve Boeing's market share in this segment. April 1998: Oracle announces that it will integrate a Java virtual machine with the Oracle database. Boeing states that the Boeing 777 has outsold its Airbus counterparts, which include the A340 family as well as the A330-300. May 1998: Oracle Applications 11 is released. In 2003, for the first time in its 33-year history, Airbus delivered more jet-powered airliners than Boeing. All the applications in the business software now run across the web in a standard web browser.

Expansion in the military aircraft market will reduce, but not negate, Airbus' exposure to the effects of cyclical downturns in civil aviation. January 1998: Oracle releases Oracle Applications 10.7 NCA. In January 1999 Airbus established a separate company, Airbus Military S.A.S., to undertake development and production of a turboprop powered military transport aircraft (the Airbus Military A400M.) The A400M is being developed by several NATO members, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, as an alternative to the C-130 Hercules. September 1997: Oracle announces its commitment to the Java platform, and introduces Oracle's Java integrated development environment, which will come to be known as Oracle JDeveloper. The company is particularly proud of its use of fly-by-wire technologies and the common cockpit and systems in use throughout the aircraft family, which make it much easier to train crew. June 1997: Oracle 8 is released with SQL object technology, internet technology and support for terabytes of data. These are competing strongly with the equivalent Boeing products and may partly explain the cessation of airliner production at Lockheed in 1983 and the take-over of McDonnell Douglas by the surviving US builder of long-distance airliners, Boeing, in 1996-1997. April 1997: Oracle releases the first version of Discoverer, an ad-hoc query tool for business intelligence.

The Airbus A340-500 has an operating range of 16,700 kilometres (9000 nautical miles), the second longest range of any commercial jet after the Boeing 777-200LR (range of 17,446 km or 9420 nautical miles). November 1995: Oracle is one of the first large software companies to announce an internet strategy when Ellison introduces the network computer concept at an IDC conference in Paris. The longer range products, the twin-jet A330 and the four-jet A340, have efficient wings, enhanced by winglets. June 21, 1995: Oracle announces new data warehousing facilities, including parallel queries. A stretched version is known as the A321 and is proving competitive with later models of the Boeing 737. June 1992: Oracle 7 released with performance enhancements, administrative utilities, application development tools, security features, stored procedures, triggers, and support for declarative referential integrity. The A318 and A319 are shorter derivatives with some of the latter under construction for the corporate biz-jet market (Airbus Corporate Jet). Ellison hires Jeff Henley as CFO and Raymond Lane.

The A320 was a great commercial success. 1990: In the third quarter, Oracle reports its first ever loss, hundreds of employees are laid off. Building on its success, Airbus launched the A320 with its innovative fly-by-wire control system. Revenues reach US$584 million. A shorter variant of the A300 is known as the A310. 1989: Oracle moves world headquarters to Redwood Shores, California. The Airbus product line started with the A300, the world's first twin-aisle, twin-engined aircraft. 1988: Oracle version 6 is released, featuring the embedded procedural language PL/SQL and support for row-level locking and hot backups.

Test flights are due to continue until mid-2006. Oracle acquires TCI for its project management software. With the recent Franco-German controversy over the leadership of EADS still fresh in mind, Airbus issued a statement to make it clear that the crew had been chosen not based on nationality, but based on competence. August 1987: Oracle founds its Applications division, building business mangement software closely integrated with its database software. The crew was made up of French test pilots Jacques Rosay (captain for the take-off and the initial part of the test flight) and Claude Lelaie (captain for the second part of the test flight including the landing), as well as three flight test engineers (Spanish, French, and German), and one French test flight engineer. March 15, 1986: Oracle goes public with revenues of $55 million USD. local time). Investigations into clustering begin.

local time), going west towards the Atlantic Ocean, turning around above the ocean, flying above the Pyrenees mountains, and landing at Toulouse Blagnac Airport at 12:23 UTC (2:23 p.m. 1986: Oracle version 5.1 released with support for distributed queries. The flight lasted almost four hours, the plane taking off from Toulouse Blagnac Airport at 08:29 UTC (10:29 a.m. It is one of the first RDBMSs to operate in client/server mode. On April 27, 2005, the A380 successfully completed its maiden flight in Toulouse, France. April 1985: Oracle version 5 released. It was a fairly loose alliance but that changed in 2000 when DASA, Aerospatiale and CASA merged to form EADS and in 2001 when BAE and EADS formed the Airbus Integrated Company to coincide with the development of the new Airbus A380, which will seat 555 passengers and be the world's largest commercial passenger jet when it enters service in 2006. The MS-DOS version of Oracle runs in only 640K of memory.

It was the launch of the A320 in 1981 that guaranteed Airbus as a major player in the aircraft market - the aircraft had over 400 orders before it first flew, compared to 15 for the A300 in 1972. November 1984: Oracle ports the Oracle database to the PC platform. Initially the success of the consortium was poor but by 1979 there were 81 aircraft in service. October 1984: Oracle version 4 released, introducing read consistency. In 1972 the A300 made its maiden flight and the first production model, the A300B2 entered service in 1974. Codd of IBM had written a white paper about. The name "Airbus" was taken from a non-proprietary term used by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a certain size and range, for this term was acceptable to the French linguistically. Edgar F.

Each company would deliver its sections as fully equipped, ready to fly items. The word Oracle was the name of an unfinished consulting project for the CIA where the CIA wanted to use this new SQL language that Dr. Airbus Industrie was formally set up in 1970 following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France) and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany) (joined by CASA of Spain in 1971). RSI is renamed to Oracle to more closely align with its primary product. Thus the British company was allowed to continue as a major subcontractor. March 1983: RSI rewrites Oracle in C for portability and Oracle version 3 is released. Given the participation by Hawker Siddeley up to that point, France and Germany were reluctant to take over their wing design. February 1981: RSI begins developing tools for Oracle, including the Interactive Application Facility (IAF), a predecessor to Oracle*Forms.

In 1969 the British government shocked its partners by withdrawing from the project. October 1979: RSI actively promotes Oracle on the VAX platform (the software runs on the VAX in PDP-11 emulator mode). Renamed the A300B the aircraft would not require new engines, reducing development costs. The company decides to name the first version of its flagship product version 2 rather than version 1 because it believes companies may hesitate to buy the initial release of its product. In December 1968 the French and British partner companies, Sud Aviation and Hawker Siddeley proposed a revised configuration, the 250 seat Airbus A250. Oracle 2, the first version of the Oracle database runs on PDP-11 and is sold to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Another problem was the requirement for a new engine (to be developed by Rolls-Royce, the RB207). (RSI), and relocates to Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California.

In the months following this agreement both the French and British governments expressed doubts about the aircraft. June 1979: SDL is renamed to Relational Software Inc. The British government refused to back its proposed competitor, a development of the BAC 1-11 and instead supported the Airbus aircraft. August 1977: Oracle founded as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates. An earlier announcement had been made in July 1967 but had been complicated by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). This was the second major joint aircraft programme in Europe, following the Concorde, for which no ongoing consortium was devised.

In September 1967 the British, French and German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to start development of the 300 seat Airbus A300. In the mid-1960s tentative negotiations commenced regarding a European collaborative approach began. In the 1960s European aircraft manufacturers competed with each other as much as the American giants. Airbus Industrie began as a consortium of European aviation firms to compete with American companies such as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

. The main competitor of Airbus is Boeing, with which it fights an intense commercial and political war. Final assembly is carried out in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany, although construction occurs at a number of plants across Europe. Airbus employs around 52,000 people in several European countries.

As of 2005, its CEO is Gustav Humbert. Airbus is jointly held by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%), Europe's two largest military suppliers and manufacturers. See International Phonetic Alphabet." class="IPA" style="white-space: nowrap; font-family:'Code2000', 'Chrysanthi Unicode', 'Doulos SIL', 'Gentium', 'GentiumAlt', 'TITUS Cyberbit Basic', 'Bitstream Vera', 'Bitstream Cyberbit', 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro'; font-family /**/:inherit; text-decoration: none">/ˈɛːɐbʊs/ in German. See International Phonetic Alphabet." class="IPA" style="white-space: nowrap; font-family:'Code2000', 'Chrysanthi Unicode', 'Doulos SIL', 'Gentium', 'GentiumAlt', 'TITUS Cyberbit Basic', 'Bitstream Vera', 'Bitstream Cyberbit', 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro'; font-family /**/:inherit; text-decoration: none">/ɛʀbys/ in standard French (note the "u" pronounced /y/), and /ˈɛəbʌs/ in British English (note the lack of "r"), Airbus Industrie and is commonly just named Airbus. It was incorporated in 2001 under French law as a simplified joint stock company or "S.A.S." (Société par Actions Simplifiée).

Airbus S.A.S. better known as simply Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is the world's largest commercial aircraft manufacturer. A330 MRTT. A310 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport). Airbus A400M.