Oracle or Salesforce, the next "Microsoft"?

According to some there is the perception that this cloud thing is REALLY going to take off this year. (because it hasn't already???)  Anyway, it's beleived that Oracle might make a play to purchase Salesforce.com in 2011 and create the "Microsoft" of the cloud.  I think it's more likely that Salesforce will further solidify it's role as the dominating presense in the cloud and Oracle will be left picking up the scraps.  I think this is assuming the the new database.com offering from Salesforce.com will set that stage nicely.  If database.com is successful then Salesforce.com's presense as the cloud computing giant grows even more dominating and Oracle might just lose a step or two because of it.

 

Below is an except from the article I'm using as source...and here's the link to the article itself (http://moneymorning.com/2010/12/29/tech-stocks-soar-in-2011-new-era-personal-computing-dawns/)

"The Next Microsoft"

Competition to win the public-cloud service platform crown will heat up as other contenders vie for the title of "the next Microsoft," as IDC puts it, establishing a market position similar to Microsoft's dominance with its Windows applications.

 

Top challengers include Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) and Oracle.

 

Salesforce.com provides cloud-computing applications and is expanding its cloud offerings in an attempt to snag more of the $21 billion-a-year database market.

 

Salesforce.com will launch Database.com, a database program designed to manage corporate data and round out the company's cloud services offerings. Now it can charge one fee for software costs, Internet hosting and data storage. That's a different approach than the usual process of requiring businesses to buy and install software before the database companies manage the data.

 

"It's an alternative delivery method," Gartner analyst David Feinberg told Reuters. "They could very well be on to something."

 

Some analysts predict Oracle will hit back and make a play to buy Salesforce.com next year. Oracle wants Salesforce.com's CRM clients, and Salesforce.com would benefit from Oracle's global client network.

 

Many analysts are looking for a hot 2011 performance from Oracle and have issued "buy" ratings on the stock with price targets around $34. Oracle is currently trading around $31 and is up 29% so far this year.

 

 This is my first blog on this site and I'm using some simple tech from blogger to send my blog from an email.  Here's hoping I can have fun writing this thing for the next several years!

 

John Borgen