In a rare moment of openness, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) CEO Safra Catz was quite candid in discussing a number of aspects pertaining to the company during an interview with Jon Fortt of CNBC at OpenWorld Conference being held in San Francisco. Having been appointed on 18th September, 2014, to replace founder Larry Ellison, this was her first interview wherein she not only asserted the company’s dominance in database and middleware but also continued the tradition of criticizing SAP, its main competitor. With her at the helm and Mark Hurd as the Chief Technology Officer, acquisition of application companies appears to be the next objective for Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL).
One of the first points which she mentioned on being asked about growth was that of vertical integration within the organization which she expects will boost margins in the cloud-computing department. She is also responsible for projecting Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)’s long-term vision of platform-as-a-service which is meant to position it at par with Microsoft.
When questioned about Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)’s rejection of the Tibco Software deal, Safra Catz responded –
“Ask yourself: How would Tibco advance the agenda for our customers? We have complete overlap with their product lines. They’ve all standardized on Weblogic, BEA, Fusion Middleware, many are moving now to Exalogic to run it. What does Tibco add to that?”
Some of the other points that she dwelled upon were concerned with creating a balance between hardware and software, bringing about infrastructural development and the pricing model of the most recent cloud feature.
What she was truly critical about was Germany-based SAP’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Concur Technologies, as the following comment of hers’ proves –
“Concur is only a tiny module. SAP spent all their money on it. I literally went down to my car and thought, oh my God, SAP bought Concur — maybe tomorrow they’ll buy Dairy Queen. It was the best thing that happened to me on the day I was named CEO of Oracle.”
Israel-born Safra Catz joined Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) in 1999 and has since been the driving force behind their acquisition strategies. SAP is yet to react to her comment but other analysts have, a noteworthy name being that of Brent Thill, an analyst with UBS.
This article has been written by Vinita Basu.
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