Ellison rails against the Cloud

GrantCzerepak  |   Sep 23 2009   4:51PM GMT

Ellison sounds like Gates did when the internet began its ascent.

I don’t know if Ellison doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to change his dinosaur business model.

Kpc  |   Sep 23 2009   5:29PM GMT

He must be getting too old to understand new concepts.

Nstanger  |   Sep 23 2009   9:53PM GMT

…and this from the guy that in the mid-90’s was totally hot on Network Computing. Mind you, looking at how successful that was, I can see why he doesn’t like the modern incarnation (it’s successful and Oracle isn’t doing it).

ArchK  |   Sep 23 2009   9:56PM GMT

I think he understands perfectly. What he understands is that “cloud computing” isn’t really a new concept at all. I worked for a company that did the exact same thing as a “cloud” back in 1991. We just called it a “Data Center”.

Our customers, instead of having servers in their offices, were hardwired to our facility (this was before everyone had access to the interenet) and used our servers to run all their applications. We provided all the infrastructure and software support for them. All they had to do was turn on their terminals (yes, [i]terminals[/i]) and get to work.

The only difference between that and “Cloud Computing” is that we are now using the internet instead of hard-wiring connections across the country, and we are using web-browsers instead of dumb terminals. These changes were inevitable, and no one should be surprised. And no one should act like this is something brand new. It’s an improvement on a very old concept, but the concept has been around longer than some of our readers.

“Cloud” computing is a perfectly good way to do business, mind you. Ellison isn’t saying it’s not. He’s not against cloud computing. He’s just saying, “Stop pretending like you’ve invented something new. Stop pretending like this puts the providers of hardware and databases out of business.”

He’s saying that if everyone switches to “cloud computing”, then someone still has to buy hardware and software. Somewhere, [i]someone[/i] is still maintaining servers and relational databases and software packages.

These things don’t vanish. They just move offsite to be administered by whoever your “cloud” provider is. If “Google” is your provider, you’re still using good old fashioned hardware and software … it just isn’t [i]your[/i] hardware and software any more.

For some companies, this will be a very efficient way to do business. I can see small companies especially find that allowing somone else to handle their computing needs for them is a great option. But whoever is providing those services is then purchasing the servers, the software, and hiring the developers.

But it’s not like no one has ever done it before. “Cloud Computing” is just new polish on an old idea whose time has come back around.