That headline was prevalent back then. Oracle responded to the threat by eating the ecosystem around them. Had they not done that, their financial picture would be drastically worse today. It's entirely plausible that Oracle would have unraveled as a major enterprise player if they hadn't acquired so much of the industry. Ellison knew what was happening, his acquisition moves were meant to guarantee Oracle's long-term survival. It was: become a monster, or eventually be eaten by one.

Judging by the graph there was a serious inflection point in 2008. Which seems about right from what I remember. So it probably should have been a headline long before now.

The 2008 inflection would have come from the financial crisis. Lots of large firms got hit by that, and a few went under. Since the plot is of _new_ licenses, it suggests that companies weighing the benefits of Oracle vs. one of the alternatives (Postgresql, NoSQL), went with cheaper.