Meaghan Mcgrath

Editor’s note: A trifecta of rapid service releases, global expansion and a committed partner ecosystem promise to sustain AWS’ growth, on pace for a staggering $17B in 2017, says Technology Business Research. HAMPTON, N.H. – Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivered consistently strong year-to-year revenue growth of 47%, reaching over $3.5 billion in 4Q16 revenue as reported by Amazon in its latest quarterly earnings report Thursday. Despite consistent innovation and strength of Amazon’s retail and entertainment segments, AWS’ 1,017 new features and services in 2016 propelled the business to grow from 7.4% of 2015 corporate revenues to 9% in 2016....

Editor’s note: Why is Oracle’s cloud business growing? It’s not hype. It’s not a miracle. It’s data execution, writes Technology Business Research Analyst Meaghan McGrath. Oracle has a major operation in the Research Triangle Park area built around its acquisition of Tekelec and further built upon the group with its recent deal for NetSuite, which integrated Durham-based Bronto Software after an acquisition. HAMPTON, N.H. – Oracle’s cloud business provides concrete evidence it is here to stay as the company’s latest earnings report makes clear. The finalized NetSuite acquisition, a two-thirds majority of new customer wins being in cloud, and...

Editor’s note: At its recent Oracle OpenWorld conference, the tech giant concentrates on a full stack of cloud offerings while spending little time on traditional software and hardware. Technology Business Research concludes that the cloud is the key to future growth. Here’s the second of two reports. Impact and opportunities  The implication of Oracle’s portfolio and sales transformations are that the company will shift from a big bang “make and sell” business to a business that generates continuous flow. Continuous delivery of services means  Oracle will now ship new features at least each month, rather than each year. Cloud delivery means potential customers  can trial offerings on their own, and Oracle can track which functions customers use or request most frequently.  On the sales side, the continuous relationship with the customer brings implementation support and customer success managers into the process — key elements in making the promise of the offerings a reality for customers. More services, applications and data mean Oracle intends to gain a larger footprint inside enterprises. In the long term, the shift to cloud could significantly alter Oracle’s relationship with the market in terms of technology offerings and customer interactions. Oracle has the opportunity to build a base of highly engaged product communities that advocate and refer Oracle to new  customers as well as provide invaluable guidance on the next portfolio elements. From a business model perspective, the shift to continuous delivery should smooth out the growth cycles previously tied to big product releases and steady profitability. Whether operating margins will remain at historic levels is debatable, as Oracle’s financial transition will continue for the next few years. But Oracle executives maintain the “trough” is behind them. With a goal of 80% gross margin for the Cloud SaaS & PaaS segment, as compared to 96% for software updates and support and 56% for hardware, the business’s ability to scale effectively will determine the profit levels achieved, as Oracle  makes it easier for clients to adopt more Oracle technology faster.  Partner opportunities shift as Oracle moves to its new model. Opportunity will be centered on a new customer life cycle of engage, experience, enable and expand instead of the traditional model of buy, build, deploy and maintain. The  lighter weight of cloud services and simpler integrations means systems integrators (SIs) need to shift to adding business value over technical value. TBR believes SIs should broaden their portfolios of technology providers beyond the core  group of traditional enterprise vendors and specialize on integration services, security services and business operations  consulting over traditional technology consulting. (C)...

Editor’s note: At its recent Oracle OpenWorld conference, the tech giant concentrates on a full stack of cloud offerings while spending little time on traditional software and hardware. Technology Business Research concludes that the cloud is the key to future growth. Here’s the first of two reports. At Oracle OpenWorld, the company displayed and emphasized its 100% commitment to cloud offerings and the  components needed to build and support various cloud services. Oracle spent little time talking about traditional  products or delivery models, implying that customers who still want to buy traditional software or hardware know  what is available and how to contact their sales representatives. The depth and breadth of the announced cloud  offerings span layers of the stack, from infrastructure and networking to development platforms as well as  applications to Data as a Service offerings. To match cost of sales with the annuity cash flow of subscription  models, Oracle continues to shift its sales model from traditional field sales‐led direct teams to an inbound,  customer self‐service‐based approach in which try‐then‐buy opportunities put the sales rep at the end of the  funnel.   VIDEO: Watch a replay of Larry Ellison’s keynote at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY5qhLwIqBA Oracle’s transformation is significant and permanent, as changes have been made across product development,  tooling, delivery and sales. Not all changes are at scale. Sales transformation is in its initial phase, and the business  results will reflect the transition to the new model for several years. Oracle will not abandon its existing business,  but recognizes the cloud‐driven imperative. Partners and customers should feel confident Oracle will remain  focused on providing the technology they need to build their businesses, now packaged and contracted in more  convenient and agile ways. Challengers such as Amazon, IBM, SAP and Salesforce have targeted opportunities to  slow Oracle’s transition and to take share in segments where they compete. Oracle’s broad reach, however,  enables it to compete around the edges of each competitor, so agile account‐based business strategies will be a  requirement for vendor wins across the competitive landscape.  Event overview  Oracle’s 420,000 customers represent the largest and lowest‐cost opportunity for the company, which can more  easily replace its own offerings with new cloud based versions in customers’ environments. Many examples of replatformig, “lift and shift” and cloud‐based integrations were provided to reduce migration pains. Oracle did  take aim at its competitors, however, looking to take share from Amazon Web Services with its second‐generation  cloud IaaS platform and the PaaS and application layers that will run on the new cloud. “You have to be willing to  pay 20% less,” CEO Larry Ellison said, highlighting that pricing plays a significant role in the computing‐at‐scale  business and showing Oracle is willing to be perceived as a price leader, even at high performance levels.  As OpenWorld events over the past few years have progressively increased their focus on cloud‐delivered Oracle  solutions, they have also moved their way down the cloud stack. Earlier announcements centered on the SaaS  layer and new applications and were added to with increasing PaaS announcements.  At...

Editor’s note: Oracle’s acquisition-paved road to cloud dominance runs through cloud ERP powerhouse NetSuite, which has a Triangle connection having acquired Durham-based Bronto in 2015 for $200 million. Plus, Oracle has a major operation in RTP built around its buying of Tekelec. The Oracle-NetSuite deal was announced July 28. HAMPTON, N.H. – Oracle’s aggressive growth objectives made acquisitions inevitable When Oracle founder, executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison claimed during Oracle’s June 2016 earnings call that Oracle would beat Salesforce to $10 billion in annual SaaS and PaaS revenue, acquisition alarms went off at TBR. As we wrote at...

Editor’s note: Informatica’s Intelligent Data Platform puts guardrails on self-service. As business intelligence and analytics become more integral to enterprise differentiation and performance vendors aim to improve data management and empower user. Informatica does so, too, but with guardrails to reduce IT challenges, says Technology Business Research Analyst Meaghan McGrath. HAMPTON, N.H. – Businesses increasingly look to optimize their decisions and processes by monitoring performance and utilizing their data more effectively, driving technology innovations that amplify the volumes of data being produced. Ensuring robust, integrated and reliable data is at the center of businesses and their ecosystems is necessary...

Editor’s note: Oracle holds tightly to cloud growth and migration opportunity as once-healthy business segments wane, reports Technology Business Research analyst Meagan McGrath after reviewing the tech giant’s latest financials. Oracle has a major presence in Research Triangle Park built around the former Tekelec business. HAMPTON, N.H. – Though Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has quickly evolved into a formidable cloud competitor, its financial performance remains hampered by declining legacy businesses In less than two years, Oracle has reinvented itself as a cloud software provider to remain relevant during the massive shift in modern business models. The company has a comprehensive...

Editor’s note: Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has very rapidly reinvented itself as a cloud software provider. A year and a half into its formal transition and nearly the entire portfolio is available in the cloud—now the challenge is to translate that same change in revenue, says Technology Business Research analyst Meaghan McGrath. HAMPTON, N.H. – Inputs have yet to begin driving outputs Oracle has very rapidly reinvented itself as a cloud software provider. A year and a half into its formal transition and nearly the entire portfolio is available in the cloud—now the challenge is to translate that same change...

Editor’s note: With the hiring of Jim Davis, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer at SAS, last wek and through the recent acquisition of StrikeIron, data management firm Informatica has certainly raised its profile in the Triangle. So what’s going on at the company when it comes to big data? Analyst Meaghan McGrath of Technology Business Research offers her insight. HAMPTON, N.H. – Informatica ensures the repeatable delivery of trusted, consumable information through Informatica Big Data Management As businesses increasingly generate larger stores of data, administrators and business users face challenges in how to wrangle, integrate, govern...