Oracle’s Thomas Kurian Is at Odds With Larry Ellison on Cloud -- Bloomberg

An ominous leading indicator for Oracle customers and shareholders; later in the article: "“We support the notion of increasing Oracle support for other clouds,” Brad Reback, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., wrote in a note on Wednesday. “Given the lack of meaningful capex investments and limited traction to-date, we are not convinced Oracle can catch up with” Amazon, Microsoft and Google, he wrote."

"Oracle Corp. executive Thomas Kurian’s leave of absence, disclosed last week, stemmed from differences with co-founder Larry Ellison over the software maker’s cloud business, according to people familiar with the matter.

The growing strife between Kurian, president of product development, and Executive Chairman Ellison culminated in Kurian’s announcement on Sept. 5 that he’s taking a break, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. Kurian wants Oracle to make more of its software available to run on public clouds from chief rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as a way to diversify from its own struggling infrastructure, a view opposed by Ellison, one of the people said."

Oracle’s Thomas Kurian Is at Odds With Larry Ellison on Cloud -- Bloomberg