Oracle Corp. has taken a bold move in the Cloud space by integrating platform, software and infrastructure into one whole, with the promise that customers can now move to the Cloud and back again simply by pushing a button.

This recent Oracle announcement adds a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering to their Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions. Recently, Larry Ellison, Oracle’s executive chairman and chief technology, and Thomas Kurian, president of Oracle Product Development, explained the details of this unveiling, as well as what it means to customers and digital businesses.

To comment on the presentation, Dave Vellante and John Furrier of theCUBE hosted a conversation on the popular web service CrowdChat. A number of industry professionals joined them to debate Oracle’s announcement and its importance to the industry.

Cost reduction and service upgrades

The first concern among the CrowdChat group was one of cost. According to Oracle, database management was one of the biggest cost sinks in the system, and this could be automated to reduce its price. Using its PaaS offering, it estimated a considerable reduction in the cost of database storage. This went over well with the CrowdChat audience.

As a former storage guy, I think NFSv4 locally & via the cloud to access object storage is a big on… #oraclepaas http://t.co/kvQ8kRqTfi

— Evan Powell (@epowell101) June 22, 2015

The panel also noted that combining all three services, SaaS, IaaS, and now PaaS, gave Oracle a powerful pitch to new customers. The package would allow companies to make a comprehensive connection between local and Cloud-based platforms.

Oracle’s cloud story is clean – I will give LJE credit there – IaaS, PaaS and SaaS – clear strategy… #oraclepaas http://t.co/InARWLb2ZW

— Dave Vellante (@dvellante) June 22, 2015

Oracle stakes its claim in the Cloud

Oracle then spent some time showing how its service was much simpler to use and manage than common solutions, with a short set-up time and a simple patch procedure. The CrowdChat group saw this as an opportunity for Oracle to leverage its R&D and industry muscle for a major push into the Cloud storage market. The panel were also quite impressed by Oracle’s promise that its technology would allow a company to move between on-site and Cloud processing with ease.

Ellison also revealed a large suite ofCloud services to go with the new announcement. The CrowdChat participants were unanimous in agreeing this was Oracle’s stake in the market for years to come, as well as a direct challenge to its competitors. Given the comprehensive service suite, the group felt any competition should be on their toes.

MyPOV: This sets the stage for Oracle M&A to ramp up. Watch out. #cloud #oraclepaas http://t.co/JARYrJ6CE3

— Tim Crawford (@tcrawford) June 22, 2015

Nobody should miss why LJE is delivering this – it’s their stake in the ground for the next few yea… #oraclepaas http://t.co/VKKHU4sgPN

— Dennis Howlett (@dahowlett) June 22, 2015

A single-vendor solution?

At the presentation, customers for Oracle’s services then spoke about their experiences. The panel found it interesting to see how people in the real world used these new offerings and what the tools did for their companies. However, the CrowdChat group was concerned about single-vendor lock-in with Oracle providing everything under the hood. The real question was what value did the Oracle solution bring to companies along with the lock-in?

The concept of Lock-In is completely misleading. There is value when done right. #oraclepaas http://t.co/jBf6qhtS5W

— Tim Crawford (@tcrawford) June 22, 2015

The problem with choice and flexibility is it creates complexity. Too much complexity drives up OPE… #oraclepaas http://t.co/Dq7ry1YzlL

— Phil Dunn (@Phil_Dunn1) June 22, 2015

The discussion then moved on to the subject of Oracle’s R&D spending and how that compared to the rest of the industry. In this case, the numbers were quite high on Oracle’s side, well into the billions, although there was some skepticism about just how the company accounted for all that money. The group also debated what competition Oracle would face with this new move into the market.

FYI. #Oracle invested $5.5BN in R&D in FY15 according to latest financials. That’s 14% of Revenue! … #oraclepaas http://t.co/CO7doEUXvs

— Phil Dunn (@Phil_Dunn1) June 22, 2015

.@Phil_Dunn1 IAAS commoditizing…Value add has moved up the stack to PAAS and SAAS. Microsoft vs O… #oraclepaashttp://t.co/oCzi7CraWK

— Kaisar Nova Khatak (@kaisarkhatak) June 24, 2015

Check out the entire Oracle CrowdChat below:

Photo by perspec_photo88