Oracle Corp’s newly-crowned Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison kicked off the company’s annual Oracle OpenWorld event on Sunday. As expected, the company’s efforts in the cloud came under the spotlight.

During his keynote, Ellison gave details of Oracle’s upgraded cloud suite which includes the ability to use its flagship database product in the cloud, as well as on-premise. The idea is that customers can use Oracle’s cloud platform as an all-in-one shop to run applications, house data and build out new applications, while deciding whether or not they want those items to run in the cloud.

“This new Oracle in the cloud allows you to move any database from your datacenter to the cloud like pushing a button,” Ellison said.

Oracle’s new cloud platform consists of three key services – platform-as-a-service (Paas), infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas) and software-as-a-service (SaaS), all three of which are badly needed if Oracle is to meet the cloud demands of its customers.

Ellison also cited additional new services for analytics, identity, mobility and social management, saying that “no one else offers their platform to extend their SaaS applications”.

Oracle has been trying to tempt customers to use its cloud platform for years of course, and that may finally happen. The biggest news from yesterday’s keynote is that it’s now possible to use Oracle’s database in the cloud, as well as any application, regardless of what language it’s based on. Ellison said that Oracle developed its own IaaS in order to accommodate those using apps which are not based on Java, which is the most common language for Oracle users.

Ellison was also keen to update the audience on Oracle’s developments in SaaS, noting the firm now has “by far the largest portfolio of cloud applications than anybody else”. Dozens of slides detailing hundreds of Oracle SaaS apps then flashed onto the display behind Ellison as he went over the list of software products Oracle now has cloud versions of. Ellison also revealed Oracle had picked up 2,181 new SaaS customers over the last 12 months, including over a thousand who bought customer
experience apps, 959 who bought human capital management (HCM) apps, and 263 in enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Oracle also reeled in 725 new customers for its Fusion Applications suite, launched in 2010 at great time and cost for the company. It seems Oracle is keen to highlight Fusion’s continued growth even as it slurps other SaaS vendors and launches new cloud apps.

“2014 is an inflection point for us,” Ellison said about Oracle’s cloud software. “These suites are now all available.”

Sunday’s keynote was Ellison’s first since announcing he had stepped down as Oracle’s CEO – that he delivered it seems to be further evidence that he’s far from ready to relinquish control of the company he founded.

photo credit: the other Martin Taylor via photopin cc