Oracle CEO says to dump data centers and utilize cloud

When we are reminded of enterprises, the first thing that strikes our mind is ‘cloud computing’ or at least we should think likewise, says Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO. Oracle held Modern Supply Chain Experience conference on Jan 30 and this statement was made there because he feels a huge portion of IT budgets is spent on maintaining old systems instead of innovation and adoption.

Hurd formerly served as CEO of HP and recalled those days when big IT companies such as HP and IBM controlled much of the market for hardware and software because computer systems were vertically integrated. He pointed fingers at the Silicon Valley companies for offering more options.

“The Valley beat the hell out of IBM. It was great for customers; buy a server from this guy and that guy and make those companies compete for my business,” said Hurd. “You had Intel chips from four or five different server vendors and middleware from five or more companies. Applications were mostly homegrown with help from the services companies.”

When Silicon Valley is extolled for its innovation and driving down prices Hurd said that new firms helped spawn what today is a $200 billion industry of system integrators that enterprises need to help their disparate systems work together.

Hurd mentions in his speech that now cloud computing is appropriate for IT in terms of security and innovation. With the help of Oracle Cloud and other cloud systems customers need not update their systems, the updates will happen automatically.