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By Kim Yoo-chul
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| Oracle CEO Mark Hurd answers questions during an interview with a group of Korean reporters at the COEX InterContinental Hotel, Seoul, last week. / Courtesy of Oracle Korea |
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"The cloud business growth rate is robust. Sales are also going up as we've been focusing on the numbers for the transition to cloud computing. Oracle is taking the leadership position," the CEO said during an interview with local reporters, last week.
Oracle is operating in nearly every category in enterprise-facing software-as-a-service (SaaS) focusing on the public cloud. Its main growth drivers are enterprise resource planning and human capital management. It sells its software to some 420,000 companies in 145 countries around the globe. Europe and Asia accounted for 45 percent of its total corporate sales.
Hurd said the U.S.-based software firm will be the first to reach $10 billion in SaaS and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) sales.
SaaS and PaaS are subcategories of public cloud computing, allowing companies to build, operate and store software and data in off-site, third-party data centers.
"Oracle has been successful in transforming the company's business as a solid operator in cloud computing. Oracle saw a 52 percent jump in cloud computing sales in the last fiscal year. During the March-May period, sales of the quarter soared 68 percent from the previous fiscal quarter. We expect the sales for the first fiscal quarter ― June to August ― to rise between 75 percent and 80 percent," said the CEO.
Hurd was in Seoul for the first time as the CEO of Oracle.
He said the main purpose of this year's trip to Korea is to improve communications with the company's main clients here.
"I don't think it's appropriate to publicize my detailed meeting schedules; however, I am here to communicate with partners and broad individual customers as well," he said, adding that projects to build a data center in Korea are under consideration.
"Oracle is aggressively looking for partners."
Brexit will have limited impact
In a question about the effects of the U.K.'s vote to leave the EU on Oracle's European business, the CEO said the so-called "Brexit issue" will be "short-lived."
Brexit has raised concerns about how data-storage regulations in Europe and the U.K. will change.
Brexit is causing worries that Europe's new "General Data Protection Regulation," approved in April and set to take effect in 2018, will no longer apply in the U.K. once it leaves the EU.
"We don't control macroeconomic events and macro-political events. What we have to do is to focus where we can help our customers. Oracle doesn't worry too much," said the CEO. "We have very significant clients in the U.K. Oracle's job is to help them. None of these clients will be affected by macro-political and macroeconomic events."
In June, Oracle sold $14 billion in bonds, underscoring the strength of the investment-grade corporate bond market in the aftermath of Brexit.
In line with the "business-first" initiative, the CEO also said the escalation of conflicts between Washington and Beijing won't hurt the company much.
"In China, we are also committed to that market. There are really big hardware, applications and data centers, there, and that will give us more business opportunities. No matter what their situations are, firms will continue their businesses; therefore, when you talk about our Chinese business, checking the growth rate is an important issue rather than paying attention to diplomatic and political issues."
Given its earlier decisions to double the number of its sales personnel in the wake of the economic crisis in 2008 and to keep its Brazilian operations running despite negative growth, the CEO said: "Sustainability will come only when you have firm commitment in businesses and markets despite external uncertainties."
