Through aggressive M&A, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has expanded its software into areas like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and middleware. But the fact remains that the company still has a tremendous franchise in the database market. And the nature of this market is awesome. For example, Oracle has recently implemented a 250 terabyte database for AT&T (NASDAQ: T) and one for 700 terabytes for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).It certainly makes for a highly profitable business. In Oracle's fiscal Q1 report issued Wednesday, the company posted profits of $1.1 billion or 22 cents per share and operating cash flow of $3.7 billion.

On Tuesday, Norman Brinker, pioneer in the restaurant business, 

