American business magnate Larry Ellison, co-founder, chairman, and chief technology officer of Oracle, is employing an intriguing business strategy. In efforts to spread Oracle’s databases to as many cloud platforms as possible, the company has become a customer of Amazon Web Services (AWS) — a paying one, at that. During the company’s Q1 2023 earnings report, the CTO boasted about Oracle’s MySQL HeatWave database on AWS while extolling the virtues of customer choice. As the multi-cloud era begins, he understands the importance of interoperability in the evolution of cloud computing.
Because of this willingness to do almost anything to provide customer choice, Oracle has incredible potential growth, according to Ellison. He also expects his company’s total cloud business to exceed a $20 billion annual run rate in 2023, thanks in large part to its multi-cloud interoperability. If the company’s databases are available in multiple clouds, it can retain — or regain — its market dominance. Its wide availability gives customers greater choice between Oracle’s products and those of its rivals such as AWS and Snowflake. The eccentric executive clearly believes in spending money to make it, even if it means putting it in the hands of his competition.
