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Oracle is BETTER at cloud than everyone else so NER, shouts Hurd (no Katz)

Laser focus on self embiggenment, says co-chief

Oracle’s co-CEO Mark Hurd is banging the drum for the database giant’s success in cloud computing.

In a TV interview Hurd is reported to have come out fighting.

“Make no mistake about it, we are laser-focused on taking share, we are focused on growing,” Hurd is reported to have said. “We are focused on driving the company forward, our guidance is to accelerate growth.”

“We are one of the few cloud companies (that are) not only getting bigger, but our growth rate is actually accelerating at the same time,” he said.

Hurd claimed that was because of “better” training and lots of sales people, lots of R&D and “some good acquisitions.”

You can view the tail-end of Hurd’s TV encounter here.

Cloud is the fastest growing part of Oracle’s herculean business – software and platform as a service up 39 per cent and infrastructure as a service up 60 per cent, making just over $500m for Oracle during its most recent quarter.

But cloud isn’t Oracle’s biggest moneymaker – earning Hurd’s boss Larry Ellison a lot less than the prime business.

New licenses for its software and maintenance contracts make the lion’s share of Oracle’s revenue – 21 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.

Of these, its maintenance that’s saving Oracle’s bacon by growing (plus six per cent) while sales of new copies of Oracle’s software like its signature relational database are falling – down four per cent.

Cloud accounts for just five per cent for just five percent in total.

Hurd was put in front of TV cameras the day Amazon announced what’s believed to be a 41 per cent year-on-year increase in its cloud revenue, to $1.74bn.

Amazon also said it would – finally – report its AWS revenues as a separate line item.

Until now, Amazon’s AWS has been included in the “other” category for North America in its financial reporting.

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