Oracle Pitches Security of the Cloud to Software Clients
October 18 2017 - 3:11PM
Dow Jones News
By Tripp Mickle
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- The software services industry is in the
midst of generational change, and Oracle Corp. has reacted by
embracing the cloud.
The shift to selling web-based, on-demand computing services
known as the cloud has changed the way Oracle is paid and has given
the company new services to pitch to longtime customers, Chief
Executive Mark Hurd said in an interview at the WSJ D.Live
technology conference. The shift has helped send shares of the
40-year-old company to record levels.
Mr. Hurd said shifting corporate software systems to the cloud
provides more security for companies than they can provide by
managing systems themselves. He said that right now a patch for an
attack on companies' own servers could take a year to reach every
customer using that software.
"This is now becoming an issue for the CEO, for the board," Mr.
Hurd said. "More CEOs need to understand what they can do to change
the answer." He said the cloud offers ways to get a solution
quicker than waiting a year for a patch.
"Our industry is going through a secular change that's
generational," Mr. Hurd said. "What's happened over the last 20, 25
years in tech is all being challenged now, so for us, we're
cannibalizing ourselves."
Oracle's shift to the cloud came last year as the company
reported a decline in revenue for the year ended May 2016, its
first in more than a decade. In its most recent quarter, total
cloud revenue rose 51% year over year to $1.47 billion and made up
16% of total company revenue, up from 7% during the same period a
year earlier.
Mr. Hurd expects more companies to shift their software
operations to the cloud because providers like Oracle can provide
security and encrypt information, making it difficult for hackers
to access. He said Equifax Inc., the credit reporting company that
was hacked earlier this year, was the "absolutely perfect target"
for a hack because of its size and the "treasure trove of
information" it had on file.
"The safest place for the data -- my opinion -- is in the places
with the most skill, the most background and frankly the ability
technically...to protect the data," Mr. Hurd said.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 18, 2017 15:56 ET (19:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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