Before we get into whether or not SAP and Oracle have any future in cloud computing, let us try to pinpoint a couple of companies that could be touted as competition for SAP and Oracle strategies. The most obvious names that would serve face up would be Google, Microsoft and IBM. Now, the point here is that Google has never been into enterprise business software and is more than happy playing around with search engine stuff and it’s yet-to-gain-market-share cloud computing services. Microsoft has its hands busy with a lot of things and has just about entered the lower segment of SMB. And, I being on the other hand is more busy providing consulting services and software support for SAP and Oracle. So, the question can actually be rephrased to “Isn’t the future of SAP and Oracle in cloud computing bright”? Well, it should be because an update is actually a monopoly market for SAP and Oracle.
But, how is each of these companies doing? Well, of course both of them are doing very well. Oracle’s Netsuite is however doing a bit better compared to SAP’s Business By Design. One of them have been able to establish their unique selling points and already have some loyal customers. Whether or not these companies would be able to get into the mind space of cloud computing users in a more severe way is something that only time can answer. However, there’s a little bit of cause for concern as well. Both the products from SAP and Oracle are actually “lite” versions that reflect the commitment and innovation of both of these companies as far as on premise products are concerned. The concern here is, Microsoft might actually be looking for a toehold in this market before it gets ripe and that is the reason why many experts believe that Microsoft might soon enough walk into the footsteps of SAP and Oracle.
Apart from that, there’s nothing out there that could possibly supervise the future of SAP and Oracle in cloud computing. As a matter of fact, both of these things could be referred to as the forefathers of cloud computing because both of them, especially SAP involves interaction from different platforms culminating into predefined results. Well, isn’t that what cloud computing is all about in the first place? Of course things have changed a lot over the last couple of years, but even if you consider Oracle and SAP as stand-alone services (and that includes everything that they have to offer), there are absolutely no names that could be pitched against either of them. So, obviously the future of SAP and Oracle in cloud computing is not dim, if anything else. As a matter of fact, both of them have invested heavily in cloud computing and don’t really want to offer the same run-of-the-mill stuff offered by big cloud computing names out there - more inclined to providing complete solutions to the end-user.
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