Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison once called cloud computing a fad. Well, that fad is now making Oracle money.

According to an IDC study, Oracle software revenues grew over three percent on the back of big data and cloud software. According to the study, Oracle owned a 21 percent share of the application development and deployment (AD&D) software market.

Ellison unveiled Oracle’s first IaaS offering last October at OpenWorld. Now, the firm is seeing growth in the software market. Oracle’s slow march to cloud software looks to be paying off this year.

However, Oracle still has a while to go before it can truly compete in the evolving world of enterprise software. The firm still lags behind IBM and Microsoft in overall enterprise sales.

Microsoft has been the top dog in the enterprise software world for a long time. Its grasp on the market doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon either with a 17 percent share of the sector.

However, Oracle can still look to get into the number two spot by leaping over IBM. Big Blue didn’t see much growth in enterprise software revenues for 2012. The firm only registered a little under a one percent growth mark year-over-year.

That in comparison to Oracle growth could mean big things for the firms future. If Oracle continues its trend towards growth, and IBM continues to stay consistent, it can take the number two spot.

To do that Oracle would need to continue to bring out cloud software offerings going forward. The world of enterprise is increasingly becoming cloud-centric. IDC reported that the cloud would be a major growth sector moving towards 2015 and that has proven to be coming true.

For Oracle to capitalise on that growth it would need to continue its push towards the ether. Oracle’s executives have been hesitant to embrace the cloud on the level of some of its competitors, but its getting their.

It will be interesting to see if Oracle will attempt to bring out ground-breaking cloud software offerings in the future or if it will stand content to just play catch up with its competitors.

The firm’s Q3 earnings were less than impressive. Commentators mentioned that a probably cause of the poor earnings was the firm’s failure to offer compelling cloud services.

The products the firm released over the second half of last year were a good start. However, to truly capitalise on the cloud market it will need to do more by stop playing catch up and start being an innovator.

23 Apr 2013