Oracle chief Mark Hurd dismisses cloud concerns

Grazed from Telegraph. Author: Christopher Williams.

The joint-chief executive of Oracle, Mark Hurd, has dismissed suggestions that the IT giant is under pressure from the same forces that prompted Dell’s audacious $67bn takeover of EMC. That deal, the biggest in the history of the industry, has prompted claims that many of the powerhouses of corporate IT are now facing an existential threat from the rise of ‘cloud’ services; software delivered over the internet and paid for by subscription.

Wired magazine, Silicon Valley’s chronicler-cum-cheerleader, went so far as to curse Oracle, along with Dell, EMC, IBM, Cisco and HP, as a member of technology “walking dead”. Speaking before rumours of the takeover emerged, Mr Hurd insisted his company was making great strides in the cloud as the large and conservative IT departments with which it trades begin to adopt the new way of working…

The sustained pressure on companies to cut costs was is as much a factor in the “tipping point”, he said. Mr Hurd said: “I would say versus even maybe 12 or 15 months ago, the view that is that the customer is more excited about and open to the cloud “It’s marked. Almost everybody is now thinking about doing something, whereas 15 months ago you probably would have gotten a lot more uncertainty.”…

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