There is a widespread misconception within the enterprise-cloud community that Oracle’s dramatic success in the cloud and its emergence as the world’s fastest-growing major cloud provider are due exclusively to its acquisition of healthcare powerhouse Cerner.
It’s true that Cerner brings not only about $5 billion in annual revenue but also a fabulous list of healthcare customers, as well as some terrific technology, strong leadership, and deep knowledge of how the world’s largest industry — healthcare — works.
But I argue that Oracle’s cloud resurgence goes far beyond Cerner for a variety of reasons, with these two being at the forefront: First, the hypergrowth in Oracle’s cloud-infrastructure business and its continued strength in its cloud-applications portfolio, and, second, Larry Ellison’s decision to go all-in on customer choice by forging very different types of multi-cloud deals with Microsoft and AWS to allow Oracle databases to run on those companies’ infrastructures.