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They put the guy that ran ORACLE'S CLOUD STRATEGY in charge of GCP. ORACLE'S. CLOUD. STRATEGY. Let's hire Thomas Kurian, bang up job on Fusion and ... oh wait

They put the guy that ran ORACLE'S CLOUD STRATEGY in charge of GCP. ORACLE'S. CLOUD. STRATEGY. Let's hire Thomas Kurian, bang up job on Fusion and ... oh wait, what do you mean with 'total failure'? Oracle bought Sun, it had the keys to be the third force against AWS and MSFT - and they totally blew it. Just an amazing fumble, worse than MSFT and smartphones.

ldiracdelta 7y ago
Once it was Oracle, the trust issues were vastly larger even if they did end up executing.
infinitone 7y ago
Didn't know this, pretty crazy hire... what's the reasoning behind that. Maybe they were desperate as the vmware founder wanted to retire and they needed to fill in the seat quickly?
- neilobremski 7y ago
  I didn't know this either ... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/google-cloud-ceo-thomas-kurian-google-will-compete-more-aggressively.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/google-cloud-ceo-thomas-kuri...
joejerryronnie 7y ago
To be fair, my understanding is that Oracle basically went in the opposite direction that Kurian wanted to go on cloud strategy. With that said, yeah, nobody's thinking outside the box when hiring an executive from Oracle.
- faizshah 7y ago
  Oracle Cloud in the last year has been completely changing and restructuring their Cloud and the actual organizational structure of their Oracle Cloud team to match AWS. They even started calling it Oracle Cloud 2.0
pinewurst 7y ago
I think the logic was a recognition of how badly Google sucks in enterprise. Therefore the goal was to hire someone who embodied "enterprise" albeit in all aspects.
- ksec 7y ago
  It would be better to phase how badly Google sucks at doing business. From SME to Enterprise. And that is not a surprise since Google's culture is to get rid of the human / customers interaction and wants to automate everything. But in real world all business are conducted by person.
gamblor956 7y ago
Are we talking about the same Oracle Fusion that powers most of the world's corporation's accounting backends today (including Netsuite, which Oracle acquired several years ago)? Because if so, he did a pretty good job of achieving his objective: establishing market dominance in the face of superior competing products. Hiring Kurian is a message to investors that Google is serious[1] about trying to take over the cloud platform space, through any means necessary. [1] At this moment, at least. Given Google's history, their actual commitment to their cloud platform remains to be seen.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  >> powers most of the world's corporation's accounting backends today Not sure how you come up with this. Is this backed with actual data?
  - ivalm 7y ago
    Didn't know about what Oracle Fusion is but wikipedia does claim high adoption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Fusion_Middleware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Fusion_Middleware
- shadowtree 7y ago
  No, you misspelled SAP. NetSuite was an acquisition, helps with the stats. Note that Amazon declared itself Oracle-free this year, to big fanfare. SFDC is ripping out Oracle too - their single largest DB customer. ORA is a dead man walking, just like IBM. Zombie momentum will keep them going for a looooong time.
edmundsauto 7y ago
Judging a decision based on its outcome is a very good way to get articles into the Harvard Business Review, and a very poor way to evaluate a decision.

ldiracdelta 7y ago

Once it was Oracle, the trust issues were vastly larger even if they did end up executing.

infinitone 7y ago

Didn't know this, pretty crazy hire... what's the reasoning behind that. Maybe they were desperate as the vmware founder wanted to retire and they needed to fill in the seat quickly?

neilobremski 7y ago
I didn't know this either ... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/google-cloud-ceo-thomas-kurian-google-will-compete-more-aggressively.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/google-cloud-ceo-thomas-kuri...

joejerryronnie 7y ago

To be fair, my understanding is that Oracle basically went in the opposite direction that Kurian wanted to go on cloud strategy. With that said, yeah, nobody's thinking outside the box when hiring an executive from Oracle.

faizshah 7y ago
Oracle Cloud in the last year has been completely changing and restructuring their Cloud and the actual organizational structure of their Oracle Cloud team to match AWS. They even started calling it Oracle Cloud 2.0

pinewurst 7y ago

I think the logic was a recognition of how badly Google sucks in enterprise. Therefore the goal was to hire someone who embodied "enterprise" albeit in all aspects.

ksec 7y ago
It would be better to phase how badly Google sucks at doing business. From SME to Enterprise. And that is not a surprise since Google's culture is to get rid of the human / customers interaction and wants to automate everything. But in real world all business are conducted by person.

gamblor956 7y ago

Are we talking about the same Oracle Fusion that powers most of the world's corporation's accounting backends today (including Netsuite, which Oracle acquired several years ago)? Because if so, he did a pretty good job of achieving his objective: establishing market dominance in the face of superior competing products. Hiring Kurian is a message to investors that Google is serious[1] about trying to take over the cloud platform space, through any means necessary. [1] At this moment, at least. Given Google's history, their actual commitment to their cloud platform remains to be seen.

StreamBright 7y ago
>> powers most of the world's corporation's accounting backends today Not sure how you come up with this. Is this backed with actual data?
- ivalm 7y ago
  Didn't know about what Oracle Fusion is but wikipedia does claim high adoption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Fusion_Middleware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Fusion_Middleware
shadowtree 7y ago
No, you misspelled SAP. NetSuite was an acquisition, helps with the stats. Note that Amazon declared itself Oracle-free this year, to big fanfare. SFDC is ripping out Oracle too - their single largest DB customer. ORA is a dead man walking, just like IBM. Zombie momentum will keep them going for a looooong time.

edmundsauto 7y ago

Judging a decision based on its outcome is a very good way to get articles into the Harvard Business Review, and a very poor way to evaluate a decision.