's cloud unit Azure. Catz explained that Oracle spent much of last year setting up the basics for its cloud business, and is now starting to fill data centers with software that she said is newer and more effective than the competition.
"In the cloud, time is money," she said. "We're just rolling out and filling those data centers and, costs a lot. But remember, we build our own computers. We've got everything optimized, and it's much, much faster." Catz also said Oracle's acquisition of Cerner, an electronic health record software company, will create payoffs down the line. During a recent conference call with analysts, Catz said the "accelerated transition" of Cerner to the cloud was causing some "near-term headwinds" to revenue.
"We don't recognize a lot of that revenue upfront, but over time, that's where the big payoff is," she said. "Remember, we didn't want to leave Cerner just as it was. We wanted to modernize it, and we're doing that with all of the technology that we have to do it."