Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) said something interesting this week: It may join the ranks of PC makers and offer a netbook PC for sale. Why on earth Oracle would want to get into the extremely popular but low-margin netbook PC hardware business is an interesting mystery, but that's exactly what Oracle chief Larry Ellison indicated.

Oracle, which is in the midst of closing its deal to buy Sun Microsystems, said that Sun's Java technology could be used to run a future Oracle-branded netbook PC. Ellison quipped that "I don't see why some of those devices shouldn't come from Sun . . . there will be computers that are fundamentally based on Java."

MAJOR PAPERS:

• A newly published report by Standard & Poor's said that the performance of organizations such as Federal National Mortgage Association (NYSE: FNM), or Fannie Mae, and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (NYSE: FRE), or Freddie Mac, could directly affect the U.S. economy and the country's credit rating, especially if they have to be rescued by the government, according to the Wall Street Journal's "Credit Markets" column.
• Seagate Technology LLC (NYSE: STX), a hard drive maker, filed a patent infringement suit in San Francisco against STEC Inc (NASDAQ: STEC) over four patents related to technology used to store data on computer chips, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• The Financial Times reported that Citigroup Incorporated (NYSE: C) is allowing private equity groups such as Apollo, The Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) and TPG that are bidding for up to $12B of its leveraged loans to 'cherry-pick' from a wide range of assets with different credit ratings and prices.

WEB SITES:

• According to analysts, Reuters reported that technology industry leaders that include International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM), Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) are among the companies with large cash reserves that could be used to fund acquisitions.

It's going to be a nice Christmas for Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL). He's the majority owner of NetSuite, which had a nice IPO today. (It will start trading on Thursday under the ticker N.)

And, of course, Oracle posted a stellar fiscal Q2. Revenues spiked 28% to $5.31 billion and earnings came in at $1.3 billion, up 35%. In fact, this was the strongest growth spurt in a decade.

A big positive was license revenues, which were up 38% to $1.67 billion. Then again, it helps that Oracle has cobbled together a variety of acquisitions, boosting the product offerings as well as the customer footprint. Because of the diversification, Oracle is not seeing a drag from recent problems in the financial services space. The heft has also been helpful in combating fierce competitors, such as IBM (NYSE: IBM), SAP (NYSE: SAP) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

It was a tough time in 1977. There was inflation, unemployment and political turmoil because of Watergate.

But such things didn't mean much for a group of programmers -- Bob Miner, Ed Oates, and Larry Ellison. They started a database software company called Structured Development Laboratories. Of course, the company would eventually be renamed Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) and grow into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse.

Well, this week at the popular Oracle OpenWorld conference, Larry devoted his keynote to the early days of the company (the picture on the upper right is the original 900-square foot office location).