Global CIO: At Oracle Open World, Oracle Commits To Cloud Computing

"In applications, SAP is the leader. But their technology that they use for applications is a proprietary technology—a German programming language called ABAP. That's a 25-year-old technology that's still the center of their architecture and strategy for applications going forward, this ABAP," Ellison said.

"The center of our strategy going forward is Java and a modern service-oriented architecture. And during this calendar year we will deliver our Fusion applications—we're been working on them for a while and we have rewritten, or written, in Java all of our accounting software, all of our supply chain software, all of our HR software, our sales automation, our service-automation software—has all been rewritten in Java with a modern service-oriented architecture. And we're gonna go compete with SAP's 25-year-old technology."

Ellison then described how Oracle's portfolio of applications with industry-specific functionality—some built internally, many acquired and integrated—allows Oracle to tap into new revenue streams unavailable to SAP.

"We think SAP is vulnerable and we can take them on in a variety of industries. The other thing that we're doing is SAP is not doing is emphasizing industry functionalities. So it's not just technology where we're competing with SAP—we're also competing with them on functionality," Ellison said.

(End of excerpt.)

So my take on the flip in Kurian's keynote topic is that Oracle has chosen to leverage the huge momentum it has in the market following its blowout first-quarter results by explicitly adding cloud computing to the list of its top priorities: Fusion apps; the Exadata Database Machine and related new-product launches that will debut this week (possibly this evening in Ellison's first keynote); Oracle's stance on open-source technologies within its stable, primarily Java and MySQL; and its ongoing surge into not just the world of systems but also storage.

I'm glad to see the cloud move become official via Kurian's keynote. In a Global CIO column I wrote late last week as a preview to this week's event, called Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Top 10 Priorities At Oracle Open World, I predicted that Oracle would this week announce the formation of a formal cloud-computing business unit within the company.

The other keynotes this week by Oracle execs include president Safra Catz and president Mark Hurd, although no details were offered for what they'd talk about; and executive vice president John Fowler and chief corporate architect Edward Screven on "Software. Hardware. Complete Systems.", which was described as "a live update on the strategy for Oracle's Sun server and storage systems and how, combining them with Oracle software, we are delivering complete systems that dramatically improve business operations. Hear firsthand how Oracle's ongoing investment in innovation across the stack is creating new capabilities and opportunities for your business."

RECOMMENDED READING Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Top 10 Priorities At Oracle Open World Global CIO: Oracle's Larry Ellison Declares War On IBM And SAP Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Acquisition List: Who's #1? Global CIO: In Hurd's Wake, An Ugly Ending For Oracle's Charles Phillips Global CIO: Larry Ellison Looms Large Over Put-Down Of Oracle President Global CIO: Resurrecting Mark Hurd: Larry Ellison's War With IBM Global CIO: Larry Ellison And Mark Hurd: The Job Interview Global CIO: Burying Mark Hurd: Hewlett-Packard And Its Future Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard CEO Hurd's Strategy: The Infrastructure Company Global CIO: Oracle Dumps HP After Co-Creating 'Most Successful Introduction Ever' Global CIO: Larry Ellison's IBM-Slayer Is Oracle Exadata Machine Global CIO: IBM And Oracle Expose Hewlett-Packard's Achilles' Heel Global CIO: IBM Claims Hardware Supremacy And Calls Out HP's Hurd Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Hardware Boasts Are Nonsense, Says IBM Global CIO: Oracle Needs More Than Talk To Beat IBM's Systems Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Top 10 Reasons For Buying Sun Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison On The Future Of IT IBM CEO Sam Palmisano Talks With Global CIO Global CIO: An Open Letter To Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Global CIO: Sam Palmisano's Grand Strategy For IBM Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

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