I recently attended the Oracle CloudWorld Tour in Singapore and I sat down with Jae Evans, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Oracle and we discussed Oracle’s strategies for modernising its product and service suite. The discussion delved into Oracle’s journey towards providing a comprehensive and innovative cloud platform, as well as addressing challenges related to customer loyalty and security concerns.

Expanding Oracle’s Cloud Services

Evans shed light on Oracle’s evolution into a preferred cloud provider, talking through Oracle’s dedication to solving customers’ complex problems. She highlighted the strategic focus on unifying cloud services and providing a comprehensive set of resources, including infrastructure, horizontal and vertical applications, and industry-specific solutions like finance and healthcare.

Furthermore, Evans discussed Oracle’s partnership with Azure, enabling customers to seamlessly migrate database workloads to Azure’s data centres while maintaining cloud-based operations. The executive stressed that Oracle’s approach focuses on bringing the cloud to the customers by offering solutions that cater to their specific requirements, including privacy, data sovereignty, and on-premises operations.

Evans commented,

“So one of the big things there we see is we want to bring the cloud to our customers. How do we do that? We recently announced the strategic partnership with Azure to enable our customers to get their database workloads in Azure, putting our database assets in Azure’s data centers.”

Challenges and Competitiveness in the Cloud Market

Evans acknowledged Oracle’s relatively late entry into the cloud industry and addressed the challenge of visibility and perception in the market. She highlighted Oracle’s efforts to educate potential prospects and existing customers about its cloud strategy and the range of differentiated services it offers. Additionally, Evans illuminated the need for Oracle to keep pace with competitors while continuously innovating to meet customers’ evolving requirements.

Evans added,

“What we’re able to provide is in fact, a highly distributed scalable cloud that now all the applications that I’m talking about that we just discussed sits on to our cloud. So we had to build our cloud differently so that we can get that scale…”

“…prior to 8 years of our cloud journey, we had not had a robust cloud as I’m talking about today, no we’ve been able to differentiate what we’re able to provide, on top of the applications.”

Security and Innovation

Addressing concerns about cloud security, Evans detailed how Oracle’s cloud was fundamentally built with security at its core. The Executive explained that the cloud infrastructure was designed to provide powerful security measures, including perimeter security, detection, and response tools, to safeguard critical workloads and customers’ data.

Customer Loyalty and Market Dynamics

Oracle has been around for 47 years, after being Founded by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates – which has meant there is a stigma attached to Oracle as being an elder statesman in the technology game. Despite the perception, Evans gave assurance that Oracle’s focus involves continuously addressing customer needs and delivering solutions that enhance security, reliability, and functionality, thereby providing customers with compelling reasons to choose their cloud service – regardless of being the ‘newer’ kid on the proverbial cloud block.

Evans went on to say,

“The biggest focus and the biggest differentiator that we have, in coming later to the game, is like, hey, we have these capabilities that entices customers to use our services because we’re using that feedback loop.”

“That’s where I see what we do as a big game changer because, customers do have options. Right? And that they have choices. We want to provide the right solution so that they end up, using our services.”

Evans’ insights into Oracle’s cloud strategy showcases a proactive and customer-centric approach. Oracle appears committed to securing its position as a leading cloud service provider, irrespective of the competitive landscape.