We frequently hear that companies want to focus their efforts up the stack, particularly on the customer-facing applications that differentiate them in the market. With all the innovation taking place in application development these days (containers, Big Data, SaaS, etc.) they are on a seemingly endless learning curve trying to stay up-to-date and competitive. Many are looking for ways to reduce time spent on “plumbing” — lower stack infrastructure — to free up time for the all important applications.

Karen Sigman, VP of Converged Infrastructure Marketing at Oracle, said this is often echoed in her conversations with customers. “They don’t want to spend their time becoming IT experts anymore, and so the value of an appliance-like technology or a cloud service — either one is exactly what they’re looking for, because they want to simplify their IT infrastructure.”

Sigman told John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during a special On-the-Ground segment at Oracle’s Redwood Shores Headquarters that the return on time put into applications is much greater because they more directly drive business and revenue.

Spoilt for choice

Many customers are understandably confused about moving to the cloud — in part because there are so many means available these days, Sigman said. “There’s a lot of journeys to the cloud, and they don’t have to make those choices today,” she advised.

Speaking of choice, she said that Oracle wants to market itself as the company that offers the most alternatives to customers. At the upcoming Oracle OpenWorld conference, there will be discussion around its variety of cloud offerings, including its Big Data Cloud Machine and Exadata Cloud Machine.

Watch the complete video interview with Karen Sigman below:

Photo by SiliconANGLE