Oracle Still in Denial
June 24, 2009 Leave a comment
Ellison Acknowledges Trend to Cloud Computing
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation, is slowly beginning to see the light regarding Cloud Computing, but still doesn’t comprehend the implications. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Ellison acknowledges the importance of the trend. He says that Oracle is getting “a little bit” into the space.
This is in stark contrast to Ellison’s comments over the past few years depicting Cloud Computing as “gibberish”, SaaS as unprofitable and multi-tenant architectures as insecure.
Fusion Isn’t the Answer
While nuclear fusion may eventually be the answer to the world’s energy needs, Oracle’s long-awaited Fusion products will never be the answer to the needs of manufacturers. Ellison seems to cling to the notion that customers won’t trust SaaS vendors with their data. His answer is for Oracle to operate a data center owned by the customers. This sounds like the failed ASP model to me. It does not take cost or complexity out of the vendor-customer relationship. It does not speed time to market for features customers really need. It perpetuates nearly all the same problems that are driving customers to true SaaS models at a very rapid pace.
I am very pleased to be CEO of Plex Systems. I have always been focused on how technology can add value to businesses. At Plex we live that mantra every day. We never develop software for technology's sake. I started my career with Arthur Andersen (the part that is now Accenture) in Boston. I have led and been part of business technology companies my entire career with a focus on manufacturers and distributors in various vertical industries. I've always loved the fast pace of innovation in the technology business and I am thrilled to be part of a discontinuous disruption.
