But, going forward, it fully expects all of those applications to move to the cloud. It is in conversation with big customers that run its enterprise software applications in-house.
“It’s not a question of if, but when,” Fortune quoted Steven Miranda, Oracle’s executive vice president of applications development as saying. “It’s a question of when, not if, customers’ applications will make the cloud transition,” he added.
“That doesn’t change our commitment to keep supporting those on-premises products for as long as you choose to use them,” he told a couple hundred customers, reporters, and analysts. He noted that the Oracle Applications Unlimited promise to keep supporting legacy apps remains unchanged, but that economics will prompt customers to make the cloud transition,” he added.
The online business publication also quoted Company Co-CEO Mark Hurd, as saying at an earlier Oracle Cloud World event, that the changing demographic of workers means companies have to be nimbler and more efficient in hiring and managing new employees. That means increased use of subscription software services, a category known as software-as-a-service, pioneered 16 years ago by Oracle rival Salesforce.
More cloud sales professionals
The company’s cloud-focus can be also be gauged from the fact that Oracle recently announced a recruitment drive to hire 1,400 new cloud sales professionals in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). These professionals are expected to play a vital role in fueling the growth of the company’s cloud business throughout the region.
The new roles will be based in six locations: Amsterdam (The Netherlands); Cairo and Dubai (Middle East); Dublin (Ireland); Malaga (Spain) and Prague (Czech Republic).
Besides increasing its cloud sales workforce, Oracle will be investing in two new cloud sales centers in Amsterdam and Cairo and new “state-of-the-art” offices opening this year in Dubai, Dublin and Prague.
The move to recruit 1,400 new cloud sales professionals into its EMEA inside sales operation, as according to a company release, follows a multi-billion dollar investment from Oracle in developing the most complete portfolio of cloud computing services.
Oracle claims that it has added nearly 1,500 new software as a service (SaaS) customers and more than 2,100 platform as a service (PaaS) customers, over the last six months.
A new cloud campus in Texas
The company has also plans to construct a “next-generation” technology campus in Austin, Texas. The company stated that it will purchase housing for employees “to live affordably and conveniently nearby.”
Oracle hopes to expand its team in Austin by more than 50 percent over the next few years.
It plans to collaborate with local firms to design and build the campus in a phased approach, which will include consolidation of its facilities from Oregon. During phase one, the 560,000-square-foot complex and parking development will be constructed on the waterfront of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake. An adjacent 295-unit apartment building will be purchased for employee housing options and to support a work-life balance.
