掌门人亲解甲骨文的云战略

    此外，还会有一系列与人力资本管理（比如人力资源）和客户体验软件（如销售应用）等领域有关的云技术产品。此外，我们还会谈到M6，这是Spark（服务器）产品中的一个硅片。此外，我们还会在大会上宣布其他硬件产品。

我们再回到云服务。从收益或利润的角度来看，云服务与传统软件在贵公司整体业务中占多大的比例？

    我们无法给出云服务的数字。原因是，虽然我们有以订阅方式提供的“软件即服务”产品，而且我们也给出了这部分的数字：每年超过10亿美元，但它并不包括所有在云中使用的甲骨文产品。（投资者期望甲骨文今年的收入在380亿美元左右。）所以，它没有涵盖我们出售给Salesforce.com的所有产品，而他们可能会使用我们的产品运行他们的云服务。

但在你举的例子中，甲骨文出售给Salesforce.com的是传统软件。这也是他们购买的原因。他们怎么使用这些软件是他们的自由。我的意思是，你也没有在收益中包括汽车的销售。没有人问：“汽车销售占公司收益的比例是多少？”

    是的，我们没有出售太多的汽车。但我们确实将软件出售给经营云的人。记住，云技术包含许多元素。有工具，有基础设施，还有应用。而且，不仅有你所想的共用云。在防火墙后面还有私有云。我之所以进行这样的对比，是因为“云”是一个相对复杂的术语。它只是一个涵盖性的术语。云意味着一整套东西。按照云的定义，我们出售的大量产品被用作私有云。还有我们自己的“软件即服务”应用，可供人们使用。这些数字一直都是公开的。

也就是超过十亿美元的销售额。

    是的。

增长速度如何？

    我们尚未公布这个数字，不过非常乐观。

甲骨文对旗下的云产品满意吗？甲骨文进入云领域的时机够早吗？目前实现的目标是你们需要达到的吗？更年轻、规模更小的竞争对手在云技术领域发展更快，对此你会感到担忧吗？我想这是三个问题。

    是的。乍一听像是五六个问题。（准确的说，一共是四个问题。）

我知道你能接得住。

    我想甲骨文做过两件事。云这个概念还没有出现之前，当时还只有网络软件，拉里成立了一家叫NteSuite的公司。NetSuite的出现要早于Salesforce.com。所以，当时拉里认为，网络软件听起来是个不错的主意。（NetSuite公司致力于在线销售软件，目前市值80亿美元；相比之下，Salesforce.com的市值已经超过300亿美元。甲骨文CEO拉里•埃里克森仍控制着NetSuite约44%的股份。）

    于是，我们开始了通过研发系统开发应用，同时收购并未通过研发制造的应用。例如，我们有销售自动化解决方案，它由甲骨文系统自己开发。而我们收购了一家名为RightNow的公司，获得了服务自动化解决方案。他们都是业内领导者。而且，我们收购的每家公司都是如此。在人力资本管理（通常称为人力资源软件）领域，我们开发了核心产品。但我们收购了一款招聘应用Taleo。我们没有营销自动化解决方法，所以我们收购了一家世界领先的营销自动化服务提供商Eloqua公司。因此可以说，通过自主开发与收购的模式，我们具备了在业内无可匹敌的能力。没有任何其他公司具备这样的能力。

    There will be another series of cloud announcements around things like human capital management [think: human resources] and customer experience software [like sales applications]. You'll also hear us talk about a thing called M6, which is a piece of silicon which is in the Spark [server] product line. And there will be a series of other hardware announcements.

Going back to the cloud, what percentage of overall business, expressed either in revenues or profits, is cloud vs. traditional software?

    We don't really give out a cloud number. The reason it's hard to do, is that while we have software as a service offered as a subscription -- and we give out that number: It's in excess of a rate of $1 billion a year -- that would not include all the things in the Oracle portfolio that are used in the cloud. [Investors expect Oracle to record revenues this year in the neighborhood of $38 billion.] So that doesn't include everything we sell to Salesforce.com, which is used for them to run their cloud, for example.

But in your example, what you're selling to Salesforce.com is traditional software. That's how they're buying it. What they do with it is their business. I mean, you don't include auto sales either in your revenue either. No one's asking you, "What's your percentage of revenue from selling automobiles?"

    Yeah, we don't sell too many automobiles. But we do sell software to people that run clouds. Remember, there's multiple elements to the cloud. There's tools. There's infrastructure. And there's applications. In addition, there's not just what you think of as the public cloud. There's a thing called the private cloud, behind the firewall. And the only reason I'm making these distinctions is that the word "cloud" is a relatively complicated term. It's an umbrella term. Cloud means a whole set of things. And by that definition of cloud, we sell tons of things that are used as a private cloud. And then we have our own [software-as-a-service] applications that people can use. And we've been public about that number.

Which is that billion-dollar-plus run rate.

    Yes.

Growing at what kind of rate?

    We don't publish that. It's a good number.

How satisfied is Oracle with its cloud offerings? Did you get into it early enough? Are you where you need to be now? Are you concerned with the younger, smaller competitors that grow much more quickly in cloud offerings? Three questions, I guess.

    Yeah. It sounded like five or six in one thought? [For the record, it was four questions.]

I know you're up to it.

    I think Oracle did a couple things. When there was no such word as cloud, and there was just software over the Internet, Larry started this company called NetSuite. NetSuite pre-dated Salesforce.com. So Larry had this idea that software over the Internet seemed like a pretty good idea way back at the time. [NetSuite, which focuses on online sales software, is worth about $8 billion today, compared with Salesforce.com's valuation of more than $30 billion. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, continues to control nearly 44% of NetSuite's shares.]

    And so we went about the process of building applications organically through R&D, and simultaneously acquiring pieces that we weren't building through R&D. For example, we have a sales automation solution that was built organically by Oracle. We have a service automation solution that we bought, a company called RightNow. They are the leader. And by the way, every company we bought was the leader in their space. In human-capital management [usually known as human-resources software] we built a core product. And we bought Taleo, a recruiting app. We did not have a marketing automation solution. So we bought a company called Eloqua that is the leading marketing automation solution in the world. So this is now a combination of a build-and-buy strategy to build a suite of capabilities that's unmatched in the industry. Nobody has it.