In the era of cloud technology, what happened to Oracle, the database overlord?

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In the last fiscal year of 2017 (up to June 2017), Oracle achieved a total of $4.8 billion in cloud revenue (including IaaS, PAAs, and SaaS) for the entire 2017 fiscal year. SaaS revenue rose 68% to $3.4 billion in FY 2017, while IaaS and PAAs businesses rose 60% per cent from a year earlier to $1.4 billion.

In the fiscal year 2017, Oracle's SaaS business grew 75% from a year earlier, achieving the first quarterly revenue of more than $1 billion, while the annual revenue for the cloud business for the entire fiscal 2017 (annually recurring cloud revenue, ARR) broke through $2 billion, and Oracle's co-CEO Mark Hurd said the estimated annual revenue for the new cloud business in FY 2018 would exceed $2 billion.

While Oracle's legacy software business still has $25.6 billion in fiscal 2017, the booming cloud business has become a new growth engine for Oracle. To that end, Oracle has invested $5.8 billion in research and development in the 2016 fiscal year, and Oracle has invested $45 billion in research and development over the past 12 years, with Oracle acquiring 120 companies over the past 12 years, costing more than $70 billion, and many of the acquisitions in recent years have been related to the cloud, The recent merger and acquisition is the SaaS ERP provider NetSuite.

From 2010 onwards to cloud transformation, the first time in 2017 to achieve a single-quarter SaaS cloud revenue of $1 billion, the first annual cloud revenue arr $2 billion mark, the Oracle company in the end what is the focus of change? In the near future, Oracle's high-level and industry share the key changes in the transition to the cloud.

Wu Chengyang, vice president of Oracle and general manager of China Cloud Platform Division, has recently made a minor change, previously known as "Vice President of Oracle Corporation and general manager of China Technical Products Division". A simple update from "Technology product" to "cloud platform" has attracted more than 100 friends from LinkedIn. But in fact, for Wu Chengyang, nothing has changed.

"Don't look at just the database turned into cloud Platform, the most important point is that Oracle today is Cloud Platform. Most of the time the media likes to call Oracle Company a database company, and we are proud of the database. But today you will find that we do not have a team called the database, we call Cloud Platform, which on the other hand embodies Oracle's determination to embark on the cloud. "Wu Chengyang said.

Oracle's attitude towards customers has shifted moderately because of the transition to the cloud. In the past, Oracle company is a product-led company, most of the time customers will reflect that Oracle's products are very good, so that if there is a problem, it is not the product of the problem, but the customer is not good for themselves.

"But today we put forward the concept of customer advocacy (client advocacy) and we have a dedicated team called Cloud Success Management (Customer success Management). When customers choose Oracle Cloud Products, the team will work with customers to use Oracle Cloud products and ensure that customers succeed in the cloud. "You will find that Oracle is a big change in its focus on customers from the start of the product," says Wu Chengyang. If you go to our recent campaigns, we are not talking about products today, but rather let customers speak to them and their experiences with Oracle Cloud. ”

In terms of products, Oracle today is still pursuing chatty's ideas, providing the most comprehensive range of products and solutions for SaaS, PAAs and IaaS, as well as hybrid cloud, in the era of cloud technology. But because of the transition to the cloud, Oracle began to listen to the customer's needs and not force the user to choose or not to choose a product, but to give the user multiple choices and to switch freely.

Pan Jijun, vice president of Oracle and general manager of China application software, added that while the product portfolio chatty important, it must be able to solve customers ' problems quickly in the cloud era. Traditional software, from implementation to deployment is a very long period, the market can no longer accept such a long wait, "so we are adjusting, to faster, more accurate deployment, so that customers quickly get value." ”

Oracle in 2016 acquired the SME-oriented ERP cloud service provider NetSuite, is directed at this idea. "Oracle SaaS has three big clouds, ERP cloud, CX Cloud and HCM Cloud, like the ' Sea, land and air ' army. In addition to the ' Sea, land and air ' service, we also need to netsuite such a ' special forces ', rapid deployment, rapid realization of customer goals, quickly occupy positions. "Pan Jijun said.

"The environment is forcing us to change, the previous road has not been suitable." "What customers are now for is rapid deployment and innovation sustainability, and not having customers waiting too long at these two points is what drives us to change," Pan Jijun said. I ask my team to accurately understand the needs of customers, select a solution that can be quickly deployed to help customers go live. ”

The final consideration for enterprise customers is not technical solutions, but industry and application scenarios. This is the way for Oracle to readjust its pace and understand customer requirements more deeply from an industry perspective. From the past to the pursuit of chatty, to today to more accurate ground to customer problems, and then to provide sustainable overall solutions.

In the more important aspect of sales transformation, Oracle's senior vice president and China managing director Li Hansian said that Oracle's sales in the entire process, from pre-sale, sales and after-sales support has made changes to meet the arrival and development of the cloud.

"The traditional It sales period is generally 16 months, the overall contract amount is relatively large, the sales practice is relatively lack of sustainability." And the sales amount is larger, it will arrange more pre-sales personnel to the project way to promote. Previous sales, mainly customer coverage, sales to the solution of the cognition and customer demand for a relatively low awareness. But in the cloud, the entire sales pace, the amount of each contract is relatively low, the pursuit of continuity and renewal rate, so customers must be satisfied, must be used, there will be the possibility of renewal. "Li Hansian said.

"Before we gave the product to the customer, through the integrators, solution providers come and go to do the later program." Now we have to work with our partners, let Cloud to the customers, we will have greater sales opportunities, so the whole process of sales has changed a lot. In the face of the sales target, it is now more for industry and business people, because the business people will be more receptive to the cloud than the technical department. The pain point of the business unit is the need to quickly go online to solve the problem through the cloud, so it requires sales to have a high understanding of the customer's business. Previously successful sales, today is not necessarily successful, because the entire sales model has changed. ”

Oracle has been actively promoting change since 2.5, and Pan Jijun, who is responsible for the SaaS business in China, has experienced a "very good harvest" from the "very hard stage to today" in the past two years.

However, Pan Jijun also talked about the recent two years, the rapid growth of Oracle Cloud transformation has a certain price, "the focus of the implementation of the clouds, we found that many customers think the cloud is the elixir of medicine, as long as the product to buy the cloud represents the cloud, in fact, it is not the case." The cloud is a go-to-market transformation, not a simple implementation. ”

"We found that a lot of customers are not ready to go to the cloud, just for the cloud and cloud, simply say is ' conform '. The customer is not very clear about what value the cloud brings. Many customers because they do not understand the cloud, resulting in the deployment of a lot of difficulties, such as the cloud can do a lot of customization, but the essence of the cloud is not so, the cloud must be fast, the cloud must be a transformation. ”

Turning to the transition process of the past few years, Pan Jijun said that "the experience of the past few years has made us realize that we can make the market, customers, environment more accurate positioning, more accurate deployment, more accurate understanding of customer requirements, and then continue to the road." ”

For the domestic SaaS flourishing situation, Pan Jijun that so far, also see which can really in the market breakthrough. SaaS applications bring a lot of management ideas, such as Oracle Cloud products to the previous local deployment era of management concepts, processes, methods, etc. into the cloud products, which is not what technology can do, but management issues.

Many of the domestic SaaS vendors are still relatively simple and rough to solve the single point problem, and there is no overall solution. "I think, do software like to see Chinese medicine, not piecemeal." Now most of the domestic SaaS vendors are more like Western medicine, but can extend, can not innovate, can continue to promote, there is a question mark. It is important that Oracle is strong because we have Paas,paas as an extended platform. ”

"My expectation is that these enterprises in the domestic fight, rather than holding trees, and this tree is the Oracle PaaS." With the development of national conditions, China will be strong, in the future we will see another SaaS-friendly rise, but it will take time, because this is the management philosophy, not the technical concept. So my expectation for the Chinese market is that since Oracle has such a good PAAs and SaaS, if we work with our partners to build an ecosystem, it will be a win for all. ”

Of course, for the Oracle company, in the era of cloud technology also has "unchanged" insistence. Jianfei, general manager of Oracle China Systems Division, is responsible for all-in-one business, also known as Private cloud within Oracle, and is responsible for providing users with the most comprehensive private cloud solutions. Oracle's first all-in-one machine, the Oracle Exadata database cloud platform based on x86 and Linux, was launched in 2008. In addition to the traditional Oracle Exadata database appliance, Oracle also has an application-based all-in-one machine: Oracle's exalytics Business Intelligence cloud Platform based on BI Business intelligence, Oracle Big Data appliance based on big data, data-based, Backup and Recovery of Oracle 0 data loss Recovery appliance. In the area of localization, Oracle is now actively working with partners, the introduction of China-oriented localization of all-in-one machine products Shenzhou Digital Cloud database integrated machine.

As the representative of all-in-one, persistent adherence to the UNIX products, including the continuous update, in China there are many users are UNIX fans, the Oracle company will continue to provide the highest cost-effective UNIX products. Second, the all-in-one machine will also be focused on the private cloud market. In terms of high integration, Oracle has a good one-click migration Technology, because in the private cloud, the public cloud to provide products are the same architecture, the same standards, the same technology, the same products, through the "four Same" for private cloud, public cloud seamless operability, so the one-click migration of the high-converged architecture also remains unchanged.

In the era of cloud technology, the former database overlord Oracle company has undergone great changes: from the company's organizational structure, products, sales, partners, such as a full range of adjustments, and unchanged includes the ultimate pursuit of technology, the concept of soft and hard integration and support for cross-technology platform architecture.

There may be more "change" and "no change" to be excavated, but at least Oracle's first step out of the cloud transformation is enough to give greater confidence to the entire cloud-tech players. (Wen/Ningchuang)

This article is from the "Cloud Technology Age" blog, please be sure to keep this source http://cloudtechtime.blog.51cto.com/10784015/1958203

In the era of cloud technology, what happened to Oracle, the database overlord?