Picking up the theme on the benefits of cloud technology, Sicilia also addressed economic conditions and customers’ readiness to invest in technology today.
The flexibility afforded by being able to scale up and down is fueling cloud growth (as supported by Oracle’s recent financial results), not causing it to go in the other direction. He noted, for example, that with the cruise line business (a major Oracle customer segment) effectively shuttered during Covid, all ships were in port and that created an opportunity to upgrade their tech infrastructure and ramp up cloud usage. “Pre-Covid there was some hesitation to move stuff to the cloud. That’s all gone,” Silicia said. “Now it’s ‘how fast can I get there’?” He said that there won’t be a strong willingness to spend on “old stuff,” adding, “the downturn’s going to create an opportunity for cloud for sure.”
