Safra Catz, Chief Executive Officer at Oracle provided the keynote address at CloudWorld 2024 event in Las Vegas. Catz outlined how businesses are solving their big challenges with the cloud and AI. She also thanked the Oracle eco-system – employees, partners and customers for their contributions to the company’s success.
Catz also reminded the audience of the company’s own transformation or evolution from a technology provider to a partner. Catz emphasised Oracle’s unique cloud capabilities, including flexibility in deployment options, as well as advanced AI and database technologies.
Customer success stories
Her address included a number of key customer success stories. MGM Resorts International CEO William Hornbuckle joined her on the stage. Hornbuckle spoke about MGM Resorts’ transformation, including the adoption of digital check-in and other technological advancements.
The company utilises Oracle’s property management system, and Hornbuckle discussed the benefits of Oracle’s technology. This includes streamlined financial systems and customised reporting. The company has leveraged Oracle’s technology for digital transformation and improved customer experiences.
The CIA was among the first customers of Oracle in 1979, when the company released Oracle 2, its first commercial relational database. The CIA was also the customer that helped launch Oracle, as the company’s name comes from the codename of a CIA project.
La’Naia Jones, the CIA’s Chief Information Officer, had an intimate roundtable discussion with Catz (together with several thousand conference attendees). The agency continues to use Oracle’s AI and data solutions for enhanced intelligence and security.
Jean-Yves Fillion, vice-chairman board of directors at BNP Paribas and Bernard Gavgani, chief information officer, at the company also joined Catz centre stage. Fillion and Gavgani discussed their strategic partnership with Oracle, citing improved regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction.
Michelle Zatlyn, President, Co-founder, and Chief Operating Officer at Cloudflare also enjoyed a roundtable discussion with Catz. Cloudflare, is a leading connectivity cloud company. The company plays a key role in blocking billions of threats online and protecting millions of organisations across the globe.
Zatlyn said the company’s mantra to build a better internet through security and performance enhancements. She also discussed its relationship with Oracle’s products and services.
Making technology come to life
Catz suggested, “Many businesses have been with us during our own cloud journey because Oracle no longer just provides technology. We are now a partner in making technology come to life.
“We build our cloud differently, to run faster, more securely, and to also give businesses the optionality to run it anyway they want. It can be run in private or in a public cloud. Businesses can have their own dedicated region or in a sovereign plan. Oracle has been able to make it solutions accessible anytime, anywhere.”
New partnerships
Catz then changed gears to discuss a number of new partnership Oracle has recently announced. “Many of our long time competitors are now our partners. This includes Microsoft, Google and now AWS.”
Oracle and Amazon Web Services have joined forces launch Oracle Database@AWS. A new offering allowing customers to access Oracle Autonomous Database on dedicated infrastructure and Oracle Exadata Database Service within AWS.
Oracle Database@AWS will provide customers with a unified experience between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and AWS. The solution offers simplified database administration, billing, and unified customer support.
In addition, customers will have the ability to seamlessly connect enterprise data in their Oracle Database to applications running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), AWS Analytics services, or AWS’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services, including Amazon Bedrock.
Similarly, Oracle and Google Cloud have also announced the general availability of Oracle Database@Google Cloud in four Google Cloud regions across the US and Europe.
Customers will also be able to run Oracle Exadata Database Service, Oracle Autonomous Database, and Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in Google Cloud datacentres across U.S. East (Ashburn), US West (Salt Lake City), UK South (London), and Germany Central (Frankfurt). Oracle and Google plan to expand to more regions in the coming months across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
Catz concluded her keynote address by re-emphasising the importance of technology, partnership, customers and the importance of getting to “Yes”. The term Catz uses is “Just say yes.” Ensuring businesses are absorbing technology, benefitting from it, ahead of competitors, serving customers more effectively and working with partners and employees more efficiently.
Enterprise Times: What this means for businesses.
Innovation, digital transformation and AI normally form the key ingredients in a keynote address from Catz. This year’s announcement was no different, despite the slew of announcements from Oracle. Technology, partnership, customers and the importance of getting to Yes were also added as ingredients to this concoction.
Organisations are increasingly required to do more while spending less. In today’s competitive marketplace, they must make more effective decisions.
Enterprises need solutions, trusted partners and customers that can operate in an adaptable and continuously changing environment. Always saying yes, may not always be the best approach to meeting these various challenges.
