Oracle Moving Full Steam Ahead on Cloud, Releases 3 New Offerings in 4 Days

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Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) has celebrated the new year with a significant focus on cloud.   The database heavy weight released two new products along with a major update within a span of four days. On January 12th, the company introduced a major update for the Oracle Retail Portfolio, bringing several new functionalities as well as cloud-support to the suite. [1] It was followed by the release of Oracle Financial Services Cloud the very next day, for providing cloud applications to the financial services industry including banks , insurance and investment companies, and securities institutions. [2] Lastly, the company released Oracle Voice for the Oracle Sales Cloud on January 15th for empowering cloud functionality on smartphones. [3]

Oracle is widely considered to be a laggard when it comes to cloud adoption. Its competitors like Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), IBM (NYSE: IBM), EMC (NYSE: EMC) and Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) were quick to offer cloud-compatibility, but Oracle has jumped on the bandwagon only since 2013. However, the company now seems to be catching up (Read: Oracle Q2’15 Earnings Review: Cloud’s Success Helps Beat All Expectations) and is bolstering its cloud portfolio through acquisitions as well as new products.

We have a price estimate of $47 for Oracle, which is a slightly higher than its current market price.

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Oracle Retail 14.1: First Offspring of Oracle’s MICROS Acquisition

Oracle Retail 14.1 is the first product to utilize MICROS-based solutions since Oracle acquired the latter in June of last year. The improvements in the update to the Oracle Retail suite are aimed at simplifying IT environments for retailers, enhancing mobile capabilities and improving integration across all channels and devices.

More importantly, Oracle has added MICROS solutions to a proprietary product for the first time in a bid to provide enhanced capabilities, including an expanded point-of-service functionality, a cloud-based commerce solution and a retail-rich CRM portfolio. In this case, utilization of MICROS seems to be primarily driven towards making the Oracle Retail suite cloud-compatible.

With the addition of cloud functionality in its retail suite, Oracle will now compete with widely popular cloud-based retail analytics products like Salesforce’s Wave, SAP’s (NYSE: SAP) HANA and IBM’s Analytics for Retail.

Oracle Financial Services Cloud: No Market Left Behind

Now that Oracle has joined the cloud bandwagon, it is going all out to mark its territory in every potential market. The financial services industry was notoriously late in opening up to cloud applications and compatibility of the two was being debated as late as last year. Stringent legal and compliance requirements for data privacy and security concerns long prevented the financial services industry from adopting cloud applications until recently.

With the introduction of Oracle Financial Services Cloud, Oracle joins competitors like Salesforce, IBM, SAP and EMC in offering cloud-based services to the financial services industry through its newly introduced Financial Services Cloud. It will offer human capital management (HCP), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) in the cloud, while navigating advanced data security requirements and FINRA rules.

Oracle Voice: First Speech-Enabled Virtual Assistant for Enterprise Cloud

Oracle has achieved the distinction of being the first company to offer a proprietary, voice-enabled virtual assistant for a cloud-based enterprise product. On January 15, the company introduced Oracle Voice, a speech-enabled virtual assistant for the Oracle Sales Cloud on smartphones. It will allow sales personnel to accomplish a few key tasks on their smartphones, like creating and editing tasks, appointments and contacts, through the voice-controlled virtual assistant.

While in its current form Oracle Voice does not offer substantial functionality, it represents a milestone for the company which has lagged behind competitors when it comes to the cloud business. No other company, including Salesforce, IBM, SAP and Microsoft, currently offers voice-based virtual assistant capabilities for any of their cloud-based products. Although a third-party developer has created such a virtual assistant for Salesforce apps, it is not a proprietary product like the Oracle Voice.

Whether or not Oracle can convert this milestone into new customers and higher revenues remains to be seen.

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Notes:
  1. Updated and Expanded Oracle Retail Portfolio Helps Retailers Shift to Commerce Anywhere, Oracle Press Release, January 12, 2015 []
  2. Oracle Launches Modern and Secure Oracle Financial Services Cloud, Oracle Press Release, January 13, 2015 []
  3. Oracle Voice Brings a Mobile, Speech-Enabled Virtual Assistant to the Oracle Sales Cloud in Release 9 on Smart Phones, Oracle Press Release, January 15, 2015 []