Ellison Disses The Cloud...Or Does He?

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, recently sat down with Ed Zander (formerly CEO of Motorola and president of Sun Microsystems) at the Churchill Club to talk, in part, about his thoughts on cloud computing. As you might have guessed, it was entertaining and controversial...at least up to a point.

Ellison seems frustrated that so much effort and ink has been spent an idea - cloud computing - that has more to do with marketing hype than with anything else. He rants the cloud is nothing more than "computers attached to a network...it's not water vapor...it's database, operating system, memory, processors and the internet." Been there. Done that. An amused, if not exasperated, Zander looks on grinning from ear to ear (it's good to see him smiling again).

But, if you listen closely, you'll find out who Ellison's true target is - "the nitwits on Sandhill Road." These are the folks he equates to fashionistas. It's the venture capitalists looking for the next big thing, or more appropriately, to dress up the old in the new. Looking for VC funding? Does it "do cloud?" Check. Repackaging never looked so smart. As he says, "change a term and you think you've invented a technology."

Of course, Ellison was having fun, while reminding investors and Churchill members, that Oracle is as relevant as ever. He made a point to explain that Oracle On Demand is one of their answers to cloud skeptics and aficionados alike. He reminded people he was an early investor in Salesforce.com and NetSuite. So, thank you very much.

The conclusion? Cloud computing is an evolutionary, transformational step. It is different, to a certain extent, but did not arise magically. Ellison could have just as easily pointed to the NIST definition and been done with it. But that wouldn't have been as much fun. Plus, it's always better to look effortlessly in fashion than to struggle with the latest trend only to end up looking like you're trying too hard.

But let's recap NIST's definition. Cloud computing is characterized by on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service. Providers deliver it via three primary "as a Service" models: software, platform and infrastructure. And it can be deployed either internally (i.e. private cloud) or externally (i.e. public cloud).

See, that wasn't so bad. Maybe not as exciting as haute couture, but certainly ready-to-wear.