• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

3

The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

3

The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
Cloud Computing

Oracle’s Larry Ellison Takes Another Shot At Salesforce

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
June 16, 2016, 7:06 PM ET
Key Speakers At The Oracle OpenWorld 2014 Conference
Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld 2014 conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Oracle Corp. joins the cloud wars for commodity services that are being waged between Amazon, Microsoft and Google -- the three largest cloud providers. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBloomberg Bloomberg via Getty Images

Take that Marc Benioff.

Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison said the company he co-founded will probably be the first ever to hit $10 billion in software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service sales annually. These two oddly named software categories are driving a huge piece of the tech market right now.

That’s a big claim given that Oracle rival Salesforce is the largest company in the software as a service (SaaS) arena. For non-techies, SaaS is a model where business software is delivered over the Internet to customers. The software provider, Salesforce (CRM), Oracle, or Microsoft (MSFT), handles all the updates and security on its own servers so customers don’t have to.

Oracle Shares rise on Strong Cloud Sales

Platform as a Service is another, smaller, category of cloud software that gives corporate programmers tools to design, build, and test custom business software. Again, in most cases that software runs on the provider’s servers, not on those owned by customers. Salesforce is also in that market with its Heroku and Force.com products.

A year ago, Salesforce (CRM) chief executive Marc Benioff, a former Oracle executive, promised that his company would be the hit $10 billion in annual sales faster than any other enterprise software maker. Oracle, after SAP (SAP), is the biggest enterprise software company, so if you sense a bit of one-upsmanship going on here, you’re not imagining it.

The two executives are frenemies and have spent a good chunk of time over hte past few years taking shots at each other when they are not making deals with each other. Salesforce, famously, runs its sales software on Oracle databases and other software, although, as Fortune reported a few weeks ago, that may be changing.

Salesforce, founded in 1998, blazed the trail for the subscription model and has built up a big lead. Oracle, on the other hand, was late to the game and still makes most of its money selling database, financial, and other software that runs on companies’ own data centers.

But more companies now want to use a Salesforce-like delivery model so all the legacy software companies are struggling to catch up. Oracle, clearly, is trying to make up for lost time.

“We want to double the SaaS and PaaS growth of our closest competitors, ” Ellison told analysts on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call. “We think we have a fighting chance to be the first SaaS company to surpass $10 billion in revenue.”

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.

It can do that, he said, because it has software in more categories than Salesforce, which focuses mostly on sales and customer management applications. Oracle is also in those categories in addition to offering accounting, human resources, and other types of applications. That may be true but Salesforce, like Oracle, has been buying up a slew of companies to expand its purview in accounts.

Oracle co-chief executive Safra Catz said the company has seen the growth in SaaS and PaaS increase dramatically for the past three years. Sales in the category grew 20% in fiscal 2014, 34% in 2015 and 52% for the just-closed year. And, she noted, “we expect higher growth this year.”

In any case, Oracle, which has lagged cloud computing rivals like Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, is making a noisy bid here. But it faces off against not just Salesforce and AWS but Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and other companies, all of which are rushing to embrace cloud as fast as they can.

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in

Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can’t explain why they pay what they pay
Workplace CultureWorkplace Innovation Summit
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can’t explain why they pay what they pay
By Sydney LakeMay 20, 2026
6 minutes ago
Hiba Mona Anver, wearing a black and white striped dress, gestures with her hands as she speaks onstage.
North AmericaWorkplace Innovation Summit
80% of companies have an immigrant in a top leadership role—Trump’s visa crackdown is forcing them to make a ‘plan C,’ warns immigration expert
By Sasha RogelbergMay 20, 2026
20 minutes ago
harvard
EconomyHarvard University
Harvard admits it was too easy to get A grades, vows crackdown
By Leah Willingham and The Associated PressMay 20, 2026
23 minutes ago
frank
PoliticsObituary
Barney Frank, legendary liberal who ripped into left-wing dysfunction on his death bed, dies at 86
By Steven Sloan and The Associated PressMay 20, 2026
31 minutes ago
Professor Jeff DeGraff.
SuccessWorkplace Innovation Summit
‘We’ve given them the short end of the stick’: Business school dean says AI could eliminate many jobs for young people—even as they lead innovation
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
31 minutes ago
A dating expert says ghosting and quiet quitting are the same problem at their core, and corporate life has more to learn from romance than it admits
Workplace CultureWorkplace Innovation Summit
A dating expert says ghosting and quiet quitting are the same problem at their core, and corporate life has more to learn from romance than it admits
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezMay 20, 2026
38 minutes ago

Most Popular

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
23 hours ago
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
Future of Work
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
By Mike Householder and The Associated PressMay 17, 2026
3 days ago
The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
Politics
The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
By Jake AngeloMay 12, 2026
8 days ago
Current price of oil as of May 19, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 19, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 19, 2026
1 day ago
Spirit Airlines apologizes to all the Americans who can't afford any summer vacation flights as it shuts down
Travel & Leisure
Spirit Airlines apologizes to all the Americans who can't afford any summer vacation flights as it shuts down
By Rio Yamat and The Associated PressMay 18, 2026
2 days ago
CNN analyst and 'The Morning Show' producer says Stephen Colbert is a role model for his ‘positive’ outlook on his show ending
Arts & Entertainment
CNN analyst and 'The Morning Show' producer says Stephen Colbert is a role model for his ‘positive’ outlook on his show ending
By Emma BurleighMay 19, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.