Warren Buffett Joins the Crowd Struggling to Understand Oracle
- Software giant’s success in cloud computing hard to discern
- Wall Street, too, looks for more details to measure transition
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Warren Buffett isn’t the only investor to examine Oracle Corp. and declare he doesn’t “understand the business.” Even Wall Street analysts who cover the world’s second-largest software maker must read the tea leaves to discern how much progress Oracle has made in its long-stated goal to transition to a cloud-computing powerhouse.
Oracle, co-founded by Chairman Larry Ellison, releases limited breakdowns in its financial disclosures, meaning that investors don’t get a clear picture of the company’s effort to move its customers to the cloud -- software stored in Oracle data centers and accessed via the internet. That makes it difficult to understand what’s happening within Oracle’s $40 billion of annual revenue.