Oracle Launches Public Cloud Computing
After Amazon and Google it was now time for the software giant Oracle Corp. decided to dip its feet into the boiling waters of cloud computing. The company recently announced the launch of its public cloud system known as the Oracle cloud and the service is available in the form of “platform as a service” (Paas) and “software as a service” (SaaS). It is not big news that Oracle has decided to make its foray in the cloud computing market because cloud computing has already started making ripples in the market and almost every major software company out there is fighting for the number one position in cloud computing - it was only a matter of time before Oracle would have decided to brush shoulders with them. As a matter of fact, the company has acquired several small players (including a couple of innovators) by forking out billions of dollars in a bid to stay on top of the food chain.
The cloud computing service offered by Oracle is going to make hundreds of applications available to customers for immediate use via remote data centers and just like any other cloud computing service, a customer does not need to install any kind of application on-site to use it. As far as the services are concerned, as of now Oracle is offering just the usual stuff such as database, Java developer, documents, sites and analytics services and Web and mobile services, but the fact that the company has acquired several medium and small sized companies makes it apparent that in the near future there would be almost of stuff available in the lines of business intelligence, business accounting and supply chain management software.Some prominent names that have now merged with Oracle include Taleo, Rightnow and Endeca.
The first one was a major player in the human resources arena and even though Oracle has reportedly spent billions of dollars on research, they saw it fit to fork out a couple of millions to acquire Taleo and that their engineers and developers create human resource management software rather than setting up its own team to do so. Similar strategies have been taken with Rightnow and Endeca. The first one was a customer relationship management company - a premier one for that matter and the second one was into business intelligence. The mergers and acquisitions have created hundreds of new posts and the company also went on a headhunting spree in the recent past to fill up the vacant positions.
Critics were speculating that Oracle would go out of business as the popularity of cloud computing increases over time (because people would longer be willing to pay for software licensing), but the company has everyone wrong by investing in cloud computing and introducing top of the line cloud computing services. The prices are yet to be disclosed, but the entire package, including price is definitely going to give the likes of Amazon and Google a run for their money.
