Oracle went indubitably cloud Wednesday when it hoisted a hundred-odd applications into the sky.
Larry Ellison, who emceed the announcement – and who’s got to be every reporter’s favorite CEO simply for the kind of copy he produces – said Oracle started on a “forced march” to the cloud seven years ago, leaving one to assume he previously belittled the hyped architecture as “complete gibberish” so Oracle could catch up.
The shift away from software that customers install internally – and the kind of support fees Oracle charges – could take a bite out of Oracle’s precious revenues. A few years ago Ellison said the cloud was a hard way to make money.