Oracle’s Ellison Weighs in on Cloud Definition Debate

Igor Altman

September 20, 2010

As I’ve blogged previously here and here, there is much debate on what the “true” definition of a “cloud” is.

I laid out three broad definitions:

  1. A combination of computing and storage resources available as an on-demand utility, allowing you to dynamically scale up or down based on your needs as they vary rapidly.
  2. A hosted application as a development platform, allowing developers to actually develop (some people believe an API is the minimum requirement).
  3. Anything hosted by a 3rd party vendor! So if you’re an old-school hosted e-mail provider with a regular data center, now you’re offering “e-mail services in the cloud”.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has weighed in heavily on points 1 & 2 above, saying that #3 — best exemplified by Salesforce.com — is decidedly not a cloud, while Amazon, meeting both the #1 and #2 criteria, decidedly is a cloud.

Now it’s finally settled…

As far as I’m concerned — and as far as venture capital investment funds and any senior management team of an expansion stage software company in the cloud computing space should be concerned — the exact definition doesn’t matter, and the hype will die down. All that matters is, are you building a large, successful, profitable business or not? 

Senior Director Project Management

Igor Altman is Senior Director of Product Management at <a href="https://www.mdsol.com/en/">Medidata Solutions</a>, a leading global provider of cloud-based clinical development solutions that enhance the efficiency of customers’ clinical trials. Prior to Medidata, he worked at OpenView focusing on new investments in the IT space.