See https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-06/oracle-didn-t-see-the-data-reckoning-coming
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ODC was a one-trick pony acquisition (Datalogix) by TK. They were pretty proud of their various hacks that let them track your website usage, including the tired hidden pixel trick (yawn). They milked it for a while by selling your web activity to ad-tech companies so that you could be targeted with advertising but everyone knew that their game couldn't last. While the real cloud companies were building infrastructure, strengthening APIs, and adding new services, ORCL was investing in a web page tracker (yawn).
The 3 stooges brillian strategy: posing away billions on cloud acquisitions that generate minimal revenues and profits - pure brilliance! How do they do that?!
Oracle invested about $3 billion in data cloud acquisitions and is getting very little return on investment. Maybe stock buybacks are the better investment :)
Facing tough questions about its practices over the past year, Oracle’s advertising software division, known as Data Cloud, has implemented previously unreported dismissals. While Data Cloud has always been a small part of Oracle’s overall sales, Hurd, co-founder Larry Ellison, and other executives repeatedly cited it over the years as a bright spot in their otherwise humdrum business. That appears to be over. Investment bank Stifel Nicolaus & Co. estimates that Data Cloud delivered only about $500 million of Oracle’s $40 billion in sales last year.
The Oracle accounting looking glass is looking deeply into profit and cost. I hear more cuts are coming, more house cleaning is coming. The Oracle eye of sauron is watching you.