CenturyLink, Inc., is an American multinational communications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana. It provides communications and data services to residential, business, governmental and wholesale customers in 36 states. It also provides long distance service. The earliest predecessor of CenturyLink was the Oak Ridge Telephone Company in Oak Ridge, Louisiana, which was owned by F. E. Hogan, Sr. In 1930, Hogan sold the company, with 75 paid subscribers, to William Clarke and Marie Williams, for $500. They moved the switchboard to the Williams family front parlor. In 1946, the Williams' son, Clarke McRae Williams, received ownership of the family's telephone company as a wedding gift.
The Oracle Corporation is an American global computer technology corporation, headquartered in Redwood City, California, United States. The company primarily specializes in developing and marketing computer hardware systems and enterprise software products particularly its own brands of database management systems. In 2011 Oracle was the second-largest software maker by revenue, after Microsoft. The company also develops and builds tools for database development and systems of middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning software, customer relationship management software and supply chain management software.