Oracle & SaaS: Oracle's Backdoor Strategy to Conquer SaaS

Most analysts agree that Oracle is not on the radar as a major player in the SaaS arena. Beyond Oracle’s purchase of Siebel, Oracle’s huge portfolio is pretty void of anything else positioned as a SaaS offering. Earlier this year Larry Ellison explained that while SaaS is an interesting and rapidly growing area, that “we just haven’t figured out a way to make a substantial profit in that market. We think it’s hard to make money [with SaaS].”

At this week’s Oracle OpenWorld show in San Francisco, Oracle has announced its spin campaign around how they are a SaaS company. While Oracle may not “do” SaaS, it provides the most desired tools for building SaaS infrastructure. It is positioning itself as a SaaS platform rather than as a service delivered by SaaS.

“Oracle continues to gain momentum as a leading SaaS platform for ISVs,” said John Gawkowski, vice president Oracle Platform Technology Solutions. “The Oracle SaaS Platform connects leading Oracle technology software and partners, making it even easier for ISVs adopting a SaaS delivery model to build, deploy and manage their applications. With the Oracle SaaS Platform, ISVs are looking to Oracle and its partners as a fully capable, low cost, virtually seamless path to SaaS enablement.”

Using Oracle standard advertising news-speak, a PR Newswire article says “8 out of 10 Top SaaS ISVs Delivering Mission-Critical Applications Run on Oracle”. The article quotes Rebecca Wettemann, vice president at Nucleus Research as saying, “We found most [vendors] delivering mission-critical applications chose Oracle as their foundation because its flexibility and scalability, as well as ease of management, enabled them to deliver on the SaaS promise while keeping costs low.”

More than 170 SaaS vendors have built systems using Oracle technology. The vendors include 3i Infotech, Adaptive Planning, Agistix, Autodesk, Blackboard, Cadec, Callidus Software, Cerner Corporation, ChartOne, Cisco WebEx, Citrix Online a Division of Citrix Systems, Inc., dthree, E2open, Fair Isaac Corporation, HireRight, Infopia, Intacct, Ketera, MAXIMUS, MedQuist, Micros Systems Inc., Octagon Research Solutions, Inc., Perot Systems, Sabrix Inc., Soundbite Communications, SPS Commerce, Taxcient Inc., Teranode Corporation, TradeBeam Inc., Where 2 Get It, Inc., and Xactly Corporation.

Interesting spin. From this perspective, Oracle is alive and well and functioning as an integral part of the SaaS ecosystem. If the numbers from SaaS continue on their growth curve though, it’s hard to see Oracle remaining content for long in their current position in the SaaS foodchain.