Larry Ellison's cloud tirade: Why he's so scared
Oracle's CEO dismisses cloud as vaporware and says it's nothing new. He's partially right on the history, but wrong where it matters
Follow @DavidLinthicumOracle CEO Larry Ellison has railed against the cloud computing hyperbole in the past. Thus, it was not a huge surprise when he provided a bit of a cloud computing rant during an appearance at the Churchill Club on Sept. 21. Ellison unloaded on cloud computing in response to an audience question. (If it doesn't appear below, watch Ellison's rant on YouTube.)
I actually agree with Ellison around the origin of cloud computing. SaaS (software as a service) has been around for years, and before that were ASPs (application service providers). So the notion that cloud computing is anything new is not considering history, even recent history.
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What is new are the recent innovations around cloud computing and new players, such as the rise of infrastructure and platform technologies. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are always on the top of the list, but there are dozens of other infrastructure and platform providers to consider as well. The problem is that "cloud computing" is so inclusive of everything and anything that's Internet-delivered, the innovative value of "cloud computing" is diluted. Thus, perhaps I'm agreeing with Ellison to some extent.
