Is The Cloud Finally Catching Up With Mighty Oracle?

Oracle for years has seemed impervious to cloud computing. First Larry Ellison dismissed it. Then he sort of touted it, his version at least. But all along, Oracle was growing nicely. The industry chatter didn’t seem to matter. Big companies buy big software systems.

Something changed this winter.

Oracle’s software license sales limped up just 2% in December, and the company blamed customer budget cuts and fears over the European debt crisis. Sales to Europe, Africa and the Middle East make up a third of Oracle’s revenues. The stock took an instant 8% hit, but perhaps more tellingly is 22% off its May 2011 high. Investors appear to be signalling that Oracle‘s recent woes are due to more than just stingy customers. Could it be true that big, hulking IT organizations are changing buying patterns?

Read More of Victoria Barret’s Blog Post on Forbes.com