After many years of waiting and hearing about Oracle Fusion and the coming together of platforms and services, Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison has finally announced the release of Oracle Cloud. According to the OTN description, “Oracle Cloud offers a broad portfolio of Software as a Service applications, Platform as a Service, and social capabilities, all on a subscription basis. Oracle Cloud delivers instant value and productivity for end users, administrators, and developers alike through functionally rich, integrated, secure, enterprise cloud services.”

Talking about Oracle Cloud with customers and analysts at Oracle’s headquarters in Redwood City, California, Ellison ceded that Oracle Fusion, often referred to as Oracle Confusion by competitors, was “as difficult a thing as we have done at Oracle.” He also said that it was not a task they could do themselves and they had to make the right acquisitions to help them along the way. He however added that “simply buying things would not have been enough.”

In the last few months, Oracle acquired Collective Intellect – a company that specializes in collecting customer data from Facebook and Twitter posts; Vitrue – a leading cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform for centrally creating, publishing, managing, measuring and reporting on social marketing campaigns and activities on social media platforms; and Taleo Corp – a leading provider of cloud-based talent management.

Ellison emphasized that Oracle Cloud is different from other cloud providers out there but has similarities to Amazon’s cloud offering. Oracle Cloud is elastic and will respond to capacity on-demand. It also brings the ability to “move things gracefully back and forth” between the cloud and on-premise platforms thereby enabling end users to develop and deploy Web sites without any assistance from programmers. Everything available on the cloud will also be available on-premise and vice versa.

Ellison also talked about “customer freedom” wherein customers will decide when they want to upgrade. His cautious statement, “We will let you, within reason, schedule the upgrade.”

Ellison maintained that Oracle Cloud is a complete cloud-based solution with everything a customer would need included with services for platform, application, custom infrastructure, and social. Social services allow Oracle to drive “social relationship management” which Ellison states is not the same as customer relationship management but rather working with people before they become customers to forge relationships that will eventually make them customers.

Oracle Cloud is rolling out with more than 100 standards-based, enterprise-grade applications for numerous mission-critical business functions such as sales and marketing, customer experience, human capital management, and enterprise resource planning. Platform services support rapid and effective development, testing, and deployment of enterprise-class business applications. Social services enable organizations to transform business processes with innovative social collaboration, marketing and insight services. And there are comprehensive products for cloud providers to build and manage private clouds, and managed cloud services to help customers fully manage and/or host their clouds.

Find out more at Oracle’s Technology Network.

Related articles

• Oracle’s Ellison Vows “Most Comprehensive Cloud On Earth” (developers.slashdot.org)
• Cloud Computing: Ellison Claims He’s Over His Cloud Phobia (sys-con.com)
• Oracle Prepares to Enter PaaS Wars (pcworld.com)

With mobile devices proliferating into the corporate arena in the employee and consumer space, enterprises have to look at mobile solutions and the associated challenges seriously. While mobility offers a number of advantages such as faster ROI, higher revenue, customer satisfaction, and greater outreach, the challenges are also numerous and far-reaching. Devising a mobile strategy requires comprehensive analysis and resolution of the inherent risks associated with mobile devices, and the functional and security side of deployment.

Long, long back, smartphones (typically BlackBerry) were the luxury of top management alone. Now, iPhone and Android handsets have trumped it; and more platforms are emerging. Greater affordability and accessibility have also made smartphones a common accessory of almost every corporate employee. With that, expectations of managing office work on the go via mobile devices have risen. It’s not just about email anymore; we’re talking about apps that integrate with enterprise CRM, ERP and in-house solutions.

Understandably, the security risks are huge. Mobile devices are used for personal tasks too, as well as games and other apps. Mixing business apps with personal apps is always a bad idea. Then, there are the risks associated with the physical loss or misplacement of the mobile device. But that’s just one side of the story.

Enterprise mobile app developers face even more basic challenges. Smartphones used within the enterprise host a range of platforms, support disparate network configurations, and have varying memory and CPU capabilities, display size and resolution, battery power, touchscreens and separate agendas for the future. Mobile app developers are responsible for building apps that work on most handsets, display correctly, and perform up to standards. IT staff, meanwhile, have the task of monitoring these disparate devices, building security policies, and devising solutions that ensure the devices are physically and virtually secure.

The rise in mobile app testing firms is a clear indication of the importance and need of this expertise.

There are no second thoughts about the need for enterprises to build mobile apps. However, mobile strategies need to fit in with what enterprises already have going for their existing apps. Correspondingly, innovators are coming up with complex mobile testing platforms to assist enterprises. There’s a distinct bent towards the cloud where an app can be tested on many mobile operating systems, devices, and networks. It’s not only more convenient but also cost-effective. At times, the expense of testing mobile apps across programming languages using a range of debuggers, emulators, IDEs, cross-platform development tools, and test automation tools can bog down progress. Then there’s also the huge investment of resources towards integration testing with existing ERP, CRM, and subsystems of the enterprise.

It’s critical to start testing mobile apps early in the development phase so bugs are not propagated beyond it. Market leaders could see serious competition from smaller parties in this field but that’s good for the overall development of mobile app testing tools and technologies. The potential is huge. Innovative solution providers can make it big as enterprises look for robust and foolproof mobile app testing solutions.

Related articles

• Beyond the Walls of the Enterprise (apache.sys-con.com)
• Enterprises get serious about mobile app testing (techworld.com.au)

All startup companies start small with limited capital and resources that are stretched to cover expenses. Personnel often multitask and perform more than one role in small companies. As the company grows, reaching strengths of say 50-100 personnel, enterprise heads have to look at new ways to optimize IT management and resource consumption. At the very least, they have to start planning to prepare for the future.

Instead of ramping up in an unorganized manner, SMBs look at smart innovative options that are available to them today. One approach to improving profitability and optimizing resources is to take advantage of cloud computing solutions and outsourcing. By offloading non-business centric tasks to external caretakers, SMBs can reduce infrastructure, management and operational costs. At the same time, they can allocate more resources and funds towards the core competencies of the organization and its services.

According to a whitepaper released by IDC, demand-side research shows that small businesses consistently cite revenue growth as their number one business priority, but efficiency has become more important, especially as firms grow in size beyond 50 and 100 employees into the midsize space.

Tapping cloud computing options

The Solution-as-a-Service (SaaS) model has been around some time. Cloud computing solutions have evolved and matured to offer viable Platform-as-a-Service, IT-as-a-Service, Video-as-a-Service and other specific services. Moving to the cloud offers huge savings – in terms of cost, time, resources, scaling, agility, access to advanced technology, software and hardware management, etc. – but it also requires some ground level changes in your existing setup.

SMBs should look at cloud computing as an enhancement rather than a replacement. Comprehensive transition to the cloud does not work well for small enterprises and it’s best that some parts of the business remain on premise, in direct control of internal IT. The decision to move to the cloud should be based on the predicted ROI and cost increment following expansion. The company may open a new branch, possibly in another part of the world. The cloud computing solution should be capable of delivering results efficiently and effectively around the clock.

IT Outsourcing

Small companies cannot afford big changes fast. But when it comes to IT, it could mean short-changing yourself by not taking advantage of the performance gains of moving to latest technology. This is where outsourcing helps. Look at IT outsourcing solutions and SLAs that:

• Offer some guarantees of performance
• Support flexibility in case of unprecedented changes or requirements
• Provide a clear breakdown of costs
• Do not require lock-in periods of commitment
• Support smooth transition of proprietary data to your premises when and if required

Cloud computing and IT outsourcing can make a big difference in business profitability. At the same time, the approach prepares the company for the future, allowing company heads more time to focus on market opportunities and growth.