Oracle goads Salesforce with $10bn cloud goal

Larry Ellison claims Oracle has much wider footprint than Salesforce and that his firm has 'fighting chance' of beating rival to revenue landmark

Oracle has set itself the target of outstripping Salesforce to be the first $10bn-revenue SaaS company.

The vendor claims it "dramatically over-achieved" in cloud in the final quarter of its fiscal 2016 as SaaS and PaaS revenue rose 67 per cent year on year to $691m and IaaS revenues rose eight per cent to $169m.

For the three months ending 31 May 2016, Oracle saw total net income grow two per cent to $2.81bn on revenues that fell one per cent to $10.6bn. New software license revenues fell ten per cent $2.8bn, which Oracle said reflects the accelerated migration to cloud.

Following claims that Oracle has inflated its cloud figures, CEO Safra Catz said on the Q4 earnings call that the vendor has reviewed its cloud revenue accounting and is "confident that it is 100 per cent accurate and if anything slightly conservative".

A typically bullish Larry Ellison (pictured) claimed the firm he founded in 1977 has a "fighting chance" of leapfrogging Salesforce to be the first $10bn-revenue SaaS outfit.

Oracle's cloud growth rate is increasing, Ellison pointed out, with the figure rising from 20 per cent in fiscal 2014 to 24 per cent in 2015 and 52 per cent in 2016. Unlike Salesforce, Oracle competes in "virtually every important SaaS area there is", Ellison claimed.

"[Salesforce] don't compete in the largest category, which is ERP, also not HCM, again supply chain and manufacturing again and we think that gives us a huge advantage that our footprint is wider," the Oracle chairman and CTO said on the call, a transcript of which can be found here.

Catz said Oracle is raising its earlier guidance for Q1 SaaS and PaaS revenue and now expects that chunk of its business to grow by 75 to 80 per cent.

Some two-thirds of Oracle's cloud deals in Q4 were processed using an ‘accelerated buying experience' model the vendor rolled out last March, Catz said, meaning the "quote to book times reduced dramatically".

Angela Eager, research director at analyst TechMarketView, pointed out that SAP's cloud business is growing at over 100 per cent, despite it being more mature.

"Oracle is still early in its cloud transition so there is headroom for increases in the rate of cloud growth," she said.