Oracle has performed strongly in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, despite the prevailing economic conditions.
According to Loic Le Guisqest, executive vice president, EMEA, this is due in large part to the fact that Oracle provides products and services that allow organisations to reduce costs without reducing capability at a time of intense budget pressure.
"Some of our better years have been when the economy has been difficult. We did very well in southern Europe last year," he said. "We have some of the technologies that allow companies to reduce their IT costs, such as data storage reduction and consolidation."
He cited the example of AIB which implemented a private cloud infrastructure with Oracle. As part of that transformation programme, the bank achieved a database consolidation rate of 10 times, resulting in huge savings.
LeGisquest said that 30-40% savings can be achieved for companies in database consolidation where they may have been running thousands of databases on thousands of servers.
Le Guisqest said that Oracle is also increasing investment in cloud infrastructure, having added a major facility in the Netherlands, similar to an existing facility in Scotland, to be able to offer cloud services to customers in Europe who require such services to be provided within specific boundaries.
When asked about the increasing concern among European users for the security of American cloud services, Le Gisquest said that there was little danger of falling behind US services. He said that Oracle has enough points of presence in Europe to be able to serve customers at every level.
"The response is to have a complete solution, at every level of the stack, but also the range of services to cope with preferences for European based services," said Le Gisquest.
Speaking about further potential restrictions being imposed on cloud service users and whether it would be necessary to have services available from each EU country, Le Gisquest said that he not envisage such a situation. However, he said that in such an eventuality, Oracle would work with partners to provide services as necessary.
A greater source of concern within Europe, said Le Gisquest was a lack of skilled people coming into the IT market. He said that oracle was working closely with the EU on this.
"We must find the data scientists of the future, and empower the entrepreneurs that will disrupt with new services and technologies, enabled by IT."
"We are working with the EU on the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs."
This scheme is a Europe 2020 initiative that will focus on accelerating the number of IT professionals coming into the market.
Le Gisquest said that there will be a special focus on mobility and the web in this scheme.
Le Guisquest said that IT has the power to transform not only businesses, but economies and lives too. He cited the experience of MPESA in Kenya, where Oracle infrastructure supports a mobile phone system that allows micropayments that facilitate daily life and commerce in areas where there is no banking infrastructure.
"IT has the power to transform businesses, economies and for people whose futures lie in the industry through IT," said Le Guisquest.
TechCentral Reporters
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers