Oracle is very much an accounting an legal firm that has found its niche by gathering together old dying technology and milking the customer base to the last possible dollar.
Its effective (at least in the short run) as its stock is at an all time high last I checked 127 dollars
It takes a lot of effort, tenacity, and resolve (never give up mentality) to innovate and bring new products to market. Over 90% of new technical companies fail to survive. The few who do often fail to innovate and survive in the long run.
Oracle at the hands on the CFO's who became president and co-CEO and now CEO ... crafted an idea of acquiring companies and laying off all but the thinnest of support layers. If your plan is to never innovate but continue to charge for support and services on an existing customer base this is the way.
Think about it, the hardest thing for a customer to do is get off of old technology. They are locked in unless they invest in legacy modernization. Basically Oracle has found that the niche of the Vulture is a very nice lucrative niche.
Simply circle about an old dying dinosaur of a tech company then swoop in cut off all development and start feasting on the carcass. The street loves it. Oracle stock is at an all time high. The two highest costs of employees are technical engineers and sales people... if you don't need new customers just fire them or lay them off and and feast on existing the customer base.
Its a brilliant strategy as the cloud takes off and NoSQL eats up the database market, you do as Larry suggested in 2010
"We’ll make cloud computing announcements because, you know, if orange is the new pink, we’ll make orange blouses. I mean, I’m not gonna fight this thing … well, maybe we’ll do an ad. Uh, I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing, other than market … you know, change the wording on some of our ads."
https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cloud/he-said-what-5-things-larry-ellison-actually-said-about-cloud-4563323
Oracle never really built new datacenters for cloud, instead it prefers to rent from Equinix and let the customer pay for the infrastructure. Today after all the marketing hype Oracle has 1.6% of the cloud business. It seems Larry did exactly what he said he would. After all the hype... just about nada in cloud and its almost entirely only in the United States.
See the link below for break down of the so called Oracle Cloud
https://enlyft.com/tech/products/oracle-cloud
And now they do the same thing for the next buzzword generative AI. Have some fan boys write a few marketing hype articles and deceive the non tech savvy masses.
https://www.investors.com/research/ibd-stock-of-the-day/oracle-stock-database-giant-looks-for-ai-boost-in-cloud-infrastructure-business/
Oracle Looks For AI Boost In Cloud Infrastructure Business
Oracle is the IBD Stock of the Day as the large-cap software stock finds support at its 21-day exponential moving average. Oracle stock could be actionable if it gets a strong bounce from its 10-week moving average as well.
He also notes the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business, or OCI, has been a bright spot.
"The continued execution of OCI has led to improving investor sentiment, and ongoing cost cuts around Cerner should be accretive to margins as management team continues to deliver on top and bottom line goals," Thill said in a recent note to clients.
He added: "As OCI grows in scale and AI workloads begin to materialize, we believe the stock deserves a rerating more in line with its industry peers."
Oracle's multiyear business restructuring has moved the database software giant solidly into cloud computing. In addition, Oracle bought health care giant Cerner in 2022, continuing an acquisition spree that has spanned decades.
With 1.6% of the cloud market Oracle claims to have a "bright spot with OCI" and that they know what they are doing with generative AI.... But they mention an Acquision spree of non cloud companies that make the news for all f the mass layoffs.
Its insanely obvious what their true plan is. "Say anything, do nothing." ORCL... they have tons of lawsuits over deception, but its hard to sue and claim damages when the stock keeps going up. Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme lasted almost 4 decades, but when it fell it fell hard.
Oracle used to be a tech company but changed course... it will leave a crater on the tech landscape when its all said and done. Who knows when the game will end?