In reporting quarterly revenues that missed analysts' expectations, Larry Ellison, founder and chief technology officer of Oracle, touted the software giant's push into healthcare — a strategy that doesn't come without risks, according to a March 17 analysis from tech news site The Register.
In touting the company's contract and implementation wins in the March 9 earnings call, Mr. Ellison cited Oracle Cerner's EHR work with the U.S. Department of Veterans, which the article noted has been fraught with problems and delays. Mr. Ellison also pointed to the company's bidding on a project for the U.K. National Health Service, whose data platform has also been delayed. Oracle didn't respond to the news outlet's request for comment.
Is its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offering the answer? The article pointed out that the vendor ranks well behind the top three cloud providers — Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud — in market share.
"Oracle wants to grow that share as they move to OCI — and that is enough growth," Holger Mueller, a tech analyst at Constellation Research, told The Register. "Basically, Cerner and the healthcare market allow Oracle to grow nicely for a decade — as long as they execute well and no competition shows up."
In the same call, however, Mr. Ellison pointed to the success of Oracle's healthcare artificial intelligence in helping cut readmissions at Houston-based University of Texas MD Anderson Medical Center.