Earlier today, while delivering the Oracle OpenWorld Conference keynote speech in San Francisco, Larry Ellison announced the “Oracle Public Cloud.” Although several years ago Ellison mocked the idea of cloud computing, Oracle’s announcement today indicates the tech giant is finally ready to fully embrace this technology.
The Oracle Public Cloud, which will mix PaaS and SaaS capabilities, will allow customers to run Fusion Apps, extensions, and custom apps. Also, the Public Cloud has a database service for developers that will enable customers to deploy Java and Oracle Database apps on the Public Cloud without having to rewrite them.
Ellison repeatedly mentioned that the Oracle Public Cloud will allow businesses to easily transfer programs and data from Oracle’s cloud to a customer’s own data center or a rival cloud product such as Amazon. He stated that the Public Cloud will be based on industry standards and ridiculed the Salesforce.com cloud several times during his speech:
“The Salesforce.com cloud is kind of sticky — it’s the ultimate vendor lock-in, you can check in but you can’t check out. I like to think of it as the roach motel of clouds. Now that is a false cloud. It’s like an airplane, you fly into the cloud and you never get out.”
Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, was originally scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at the conference on Wednesday. However, after Benioff publicly criticized Ellison on Twitter and Facebook, Ellison canceled Benioff’s keynote.
During his keynote speech and announcement, Ellison concentrated on ridiculing Salesforce.com. However, Amazon Web Services offers a more similar product and will directly compete with the Public Cloud.
Although Ellison did not say when the Public Cloud will become available, the arrival of Fusion Apps indicates the launch could be in the very near future.
[Sources Include: Oracle Public Cloud & Washington Post; Photo Credit: Oracle Photos]
