Oracle Looks to AI, Microsoft --- Cloud business's hopes pinned on database update, tech partnership

"Oracle said it is adding artificial-intelligence features to its flagship database software, a move aimed at boosting its sales pitch for its cloud platform.

Using Oracle's Database 23ai service, businesses can search their private data by asking questions in plain English rather than writing specialized code. Developers can use the generative AI search-and-answer capability with other applications that are stored in Oracle's database in the cloud, the company said.

For Oracle, whose cloud platform remains a nascent offering compared with Amazon's and Microsoft's, more usage of its database software with the new AI services can turn into increased usage of its cloud. Amazon and Microsoft are the top players in what market-research firm Gartner said was a $120.3 billion global public cloud market in 2022. Together they made up 62% of the market. Analysts peg Oracle's cloud business at 2% of total cloud revenue.

The company's databases, increasingly run on its cloud rather than customers' data centers, are part of how it competes against rival platforms, said Karan Batta, Oracle's senior vice president of cloud infrastructure.

Oracle positioned its cloud as easy to use alongside other cloud platforms -- especially that of Microsoft -- and cheaper than the competition.

 The company said its cloud revenue surpassed traditional software-licensing revenue for the first time in its most recent quarter ended Feb. 28.

Microsoft and Oracle have a revenue-share partnership in the form of Oracle Database@Azure, a service that allows Azure customers to use Oracle databases inside Microsoft's cloud.

Since late last year, Oracle has been putting its own hardware inside of Microsoft data centers, aiming to give Azure customers faster access to data they have in Oracle without leaving Microsoft's platform.

Mark Prout, chief technology and information officer of Conduent, a business solutions and services firm spun out of Xerox in 2016, said the service -- made available for customers using Microsoft's East Coast data centers last week -- speeds up processing for its tolling service. The service runs on Oracle databases and Microsoft's cloud, while the company's primary cloud provider is Azure, he said.

Conduent helps manage tolling operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other New York tolling authorities, supporting the transponder-based toll-collection system known as E-ZPass and the license-plate identification service used to collect tolls known as Tolls by Mail. It processes nearly 13 million tolling transactions a day, the company said." [1]

1. Oracle Looks to AI, Microsoft --- Cloud business's hopes pinned on database update, tech partnership. Lin, Belle.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 03 May 2024: B.4.