Oracle Boasts Most Comprehensive Cloud
June 21, 2012
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has done a 180-dgree turn on cloud computing, as he unveils the company’s new cloud offerings, boasting that they will be the "the most comprehensive cloud on the planet Earth." Ellison has previously been heard mocking the cloud computing movement, calling it simply a marketing strategy to repackage long-standing technologies. No such mockery surfaced on his Wednesday, June 6 webcast.
Ellison’s claims that the company’s public cloud offerings will be the most comprehensive yet seen in the cloud arena are based on the inclusion of a host of features encompassed in the company’s cloud. These features include the company’s suit of Fusion Applications, which will be available both as platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS), and over 100 different applications in the cloud, including CRM, HCM, and ERP applications and top-level security protocols…
According to Computerworld, Ellison’s claims of superior security are based on the fact that the company will not take a multi-tenancy approach to its software architecture, whereby multiple users share an application instance. The CIA was one of the company’s first customers, which seems to lend clout to their security superiority claims.
Rival provider SAP was a target in Ellison’s webcast, although with 17 million users, SAP did not seem fazed by the criticisms leveled at them by the Oracle CEO. All this heated competition and trash talk should have IT managers and administrators everywhere rubbing their hands together with glee. Because customers ultimately benefit from a competitive environment, as any new provider waltzing on the scene claiming superiority to the rest will prompt established providers to either improve their services, cut costs, offer customer incentives, or if you’re lucky, all of the above.
This is exactly the environment that midsize businesses are particularly well-placed to take advantage of, because many midsize business IT needs are similar to those of larger enterprises, but midsize businesses are generally more constrained by resources.
There is little doubt left in anyone’s mind that cloud computing is where computing is headed, but the cloud offerings in the past couple of years have remained in the slightly cumbersome, more expensive phase that early providers of any new technology go through. This may be one of the reason’s some midsize IT administrators have yet to embrace the cloud. However the entry of Oracle into the market with their blaring trumpets and self-proclamations of superiority may be the trigger the industry needs to push providers into the kind of competitive sphere that ultimately results in better services at cheaper prices for customers. While Ellison’s offerings may not be attractive to every IT manager, his boasting will almost certainly create an environment where more choices become available, which will make the move to the cloud smoother and hopefully more affordable for midsize businesses.