OpenWorld: Oracle launches Public Cloud and Social Network

SAN FRANCISCO: Oracle is throwing more weight behind its cloud computing strategy and embracing the modern era with the launch of the Oracle Public Cloud, including a new Oracle Social Network.

Chief executive Larry Ellison unveiled the products at the OpenWorld show in San Francisco on Wednesday, during a lively keynote in which he also took the opportunity to get his own back on Salesforce chief Mark Benioff.

The idea behind the Oracle Public Cloud is to offer an integrated set of applications and infrastructure, letting firms deploy the latest Fusion apps and middleware, as well as databases, all hosted and managed by Oracle.

The Oracle Public Cloud is designed to be elastic, so that companies can get more or less capacity as needed. It also lets organisations switch between SaaS and on-premise versions of their applications at any point after deployment, as the apps are all built on the same code base.

On the apps side, Oracle launched Fusion CRM and Human Capital Management cloud services, as well as the Oracle Java Cloud Service and Oracle Database Cloud Service.

Oracle has also realised the value of social networks as a business collaboration tool, launching the Oracle Social Network.

The social tool lets users not only connect and share useful information and content, but can link up to the 100 Fusion apps currently on offer, such as CRM, finance and workflow. Ellison said that the Social Network is not limited to employees, as partners, customers and suppliers can be added.

Salesforce, SAP and IBM all offer similar business social networks, but do not necessarily offer the breadth of application connectivity or infrastructure provision available with the Oracle version.