Oracle Corp is selling more cloud-based business software than traditional licensed products in Latin America, executives said on Tuesday, underscoring how remote computing has spurred demand from smaller businesses in new markets. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd said the cloud business, which stores enterprise software and data on remote servers, lets Oracle sell to clients without the budget for hardware or qualified staff, which can be tough to find in emerging markets.
Although Oracle's cloud business contributed just 8 percent of total revenue in the latest quarter, the segment's 49 percent growth from a year earlier helped to offset sales declines in its on-premise licensing business. "One of the benefits of cloud is that you can now offer capabilities to a much broader set of customers," Hurd said at an event in S?o Paulo.
"We become the IT staff; we become the data center," Hurd said.
Oracle expects to gain "a ton of market share" in Brazil, Hurd said, adding that hiring has become easier during the current downturn.
The company built its first Latin American data center in Brazil last year and has since made about 400 hires, expanding staff by more than 30 percent in a year.