Former Oracle business analyst Mei Lin Fung reflects on a bit of Oracle’s sales history, circa 1990.

“After five to eight years — with the benefit of distance, hindsight and detachment — it eventually worked its way to my consciousness that we had changed the way things worked in one part of the system. We had not realized, however, that if you expand the pipe dramatically in one section (sales) you have to make sure that you expand the pipe in the upstream AND downstream sections to accommodate the increase.”