Oracle came out swinging at its OpenWorld event, blasting Amazon Web Services and stating that Oracle is the better enterprise cloud choice, full stop. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s cofounder and chief executive, delivered a point-by-point takedown, aiming to prove that Oracle beats AWS on the fronts that matter, including cost, speed and flexibility. One might think Oracle has everything to lose if it doesn’t win AWS’s market, but according to a former industry analyst and author we spoke to, it doesn’t.

Vinnie Mirchandani, CEO of Deal Architect Inc. and author of Silicon Collar, is a bit flummoxed about Oracle’s itch to encroach on AWS’ territory. “They’re going after the sexy part of what Amazon’s doing; Amazon goes after the new developer,” he told John Furrier (@furrier) and Peter Burris (@plburris), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Oracle OpenWorld.

Money grows on legacy laurels

The irony, said Mirchandani, is that Oracle has its own laurels to rest on and make money from without getting in a tizzy over Amazon.

“Oracle has an opportunity within its legacy base,” he said, explaining that these customers all have to run their applications somewhere. “It’s not sexy, but moving them into the cloud infrastructure, you know saving them 15, 20, 25 percent, is not a bad business.”

Aging gracefully in fresh-obsessed tech

Age-related insecurities might be triggering Oracle’s horn-blowing to show the world how relevant it still is. But surveying what he calls the “senior citizens” of the industry — SAP, Dell, HPE, etc. — Mirchandani said, “I think Oracle frankly has done a much better job positioning itself for the next generation.”

Unlike partnering snowball SAP, for example, he said, Oracle has always maintained its individuality. “Oracle has always been a little bit push and shove with their partners. Partners don’t exactly like that, but from a customer’s perspective, that’s actually a better model where you don’t just invite partners to the party and the customers pay for it,” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Oracle OpenWorld.

(* Disclosure: Oracle and other companies sponsor some OpenWorld segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither Oracle nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by SiliconANGLE