Oracle could reap benefits from '4th mover advantage' in cloud: Guggenheim
Justin Sullivan

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) is a distant fourth in the cloud computing market behind Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL), but the IT giant could actually benefit from this position, both from a technological and financial perspective, investment firm Guggenheim said on Friday.
Analyst John DiFucci, who met with Oracle's (ORCL) cloud leadership, said the takeaway from the meetings gave the investment firm confidence that Oracle's spot in the race, plus its history as a technology company, explain why it can deliver cloud services at "significantly" less than its competitors and twice the performance. 
"While there doesnât seem to be a single silver bullet, there may be hundreds of them, as Oracle has built upon the successes and shortfalls of those that came before it, while infusing decades of technology innovation that is the core of this company," DiFucci wrote in an investor note.
From a financial perspective, DiFucci pointed to the fact that Oracle's cloud financials grew 65% in its fiscal third-quarter, with growth expected to accelerate in the coming quarter.
Unlike other public cloud vendors, DiFucci noted Oracle (ORCL) has charged lower prices for infrastructure-as-a-service and higher prices for platform-as-a-service, notably databases. The Larry Ellison-founded Oracle (ORCL) has also benefited from providing fully functioning cloud instances in smaller footprints than its competition.
"If it plays out as we expect, and given the ratable model, weâd expect the future to bode well for [Oracle Cloud Infrastructure] over time, ... and soon," DiFucci added.
Oracle (ORCL) shares were fractionally higher in early Friday trading.
Earlier this week, Oracle (ORCL) chose Nvidia's (NVDA) BlueField for data center acceleration.