Last week, Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen declared that "the clock is
really ticking" for Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL ). He said the future was destined to
be dominated by fast-growing cloud operators like Box.net, Okta, Workday and
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM ). While it's true the software market is undergoing
tremendous change, it still looks like Oracle's death has been greatly
exaggerated. In light of the weak performances of companies like Microsoft
(NASDAQ: MSFT ), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC ) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO ), Oracle
has been a standout performer. There are many reasons for this. First of all,
Oracle's cofounder and CEO, Larry Ellison, has a keen understanding of
megatrends. Playing off his insights, he engaged in an aggressive string of
acquisitions during the past six years, buying companies such as PeopleSoft, BEA
and Sun Microsystems. All in all, the strategy has maintained Oracle's growth
momentum. But perhaps the most important advantage is Oracle's tremendous
database business, which has about 300,000 customers. Unless a much better and
cheaper alternative emerges, it seems highly unlikely that Oracle customers will
switch. So looking forward, it should be no surprise that Ellison is finding
ways to leverage the database franchise. For example, at the highly popular
OpenWorld conference, he talked about the huge opportunities for "big data."
Yes, with the explosion of social networking both in the consumer world and the
enterprise as well as the surge in mobile use, there is a need for
next-generation databases. And Oracle is working hard to be at the forefront.
The company plans to focus more on hardware products designed to provide more
speed and efficiency. Two such products planned for launch Exalytics Business
Intelligence Machine and the Oracle Big Data Appliance will handle massive
amounts of data and also provide analytics. Oracle clients will be able to use
the hardware to see if their customers are having problems, for example, or even
if there is unusual activity on Twitter. These new products also will feature
sophisticated tools for forecasting. After all, what good is data if you can't
learn from it? Now it's true that Oracle must deal with some tough
competitors. They include companies like EMC (NYSE: EMC ), IBM (NYSE: IBM ) and
Teradata (NYSE: TDC ). But then again, Oracle always likes a good fight, and it
usually wins. And in light of the rapidly growing need for databases, Oracle's
new initiatives could maintain its growth machine for some time to come. Tom
Taulli is the author of "All About Short Selling" and "All About
Commodities." You can also find him at Twitter account @ttaulli. He does not
own a position in any of the stocks named here.
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