In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down how Microsoft is redefining the agentic AI landscape with Copilot Studio Lite and Full Experience, offering tailored tools for both low-code creators and enterprise-grade developers. Highlights 00:03 — Microsoft has announced the launch of Copilot Studio Lite and Copilot Studio Full Experience, two versions of Copilot that, in the words of Principal Solution Architect Rémi Dyon, "empower everyone from information workers to developers to build intellige...
Sep 12, 2025•3 min•Ep. 550
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down how Oracle’s $455 billion RPO surge is being driven by Larry Ellison’s bold vision to lead not just in AI training — but in the even larger market of AI inferencing. Highlights 00:46 — First, Ellison talked about AI training . Then, he discussed AI inferencing, which will be much, much bigger than AI training. Ellison said that AI inferencing will be used for everything — from robotic cars, robotic factories, and robotic greenhouses, to biomolecular syn...
Sep 11, 2025•5 min•Ep. 548
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss Oracle's amazing Q1 results. Highlights 00:17 — Oracle yesterday released its fiscal Q1 results for the quarter ended August 31. And while its revenue figures for those three months were nice, the killer here was its RPO: remaining performance obligation. Oracle reported remaining performance obligation up 359% to $455 billion. 01:24 — Microsoft's cloud revenue is almost seven times bigger than Oracle's. Who's winning the most business out into the future?...
Sep 10, 2025•6 min•Ep. 547
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I dive into the growing debate between SaaS and agentic AI, sparked by Satya Nadella’s December 2024 remarks suggesting that AI agents could spell the end of SaaS.Highlights 00:32 — We've all been hearing a lot about SaaS dying — the demise of SaaS — triggered by AI, an opinion expressed in December of 2024 by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella , who said that the rise of AI and agents is going to lead to the collapse of SaaS, the hollowing out of it, to become little more...
Sep 09, 2025•6 min•Ep. 545
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, ServiceNow’s push into CRM meets Salesforce’s expansion into ITSM (IT Service Management), powered by agentic AI . Highlights 00:14 — While I'm focusing here on Salesforce and ServiceNow, and some changes each is making to get into markets dominated by the other, the larger point here is about how agentic AI is triggering new competition and new approaches. Today, I'm going to share about five repercussions with you. 01:15 — On Salesforce's Q2 earnings call, Marc Be...
Sep 08, 2025•6 min•Ep. 544
Highlights 00:03 — Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has published a blog post that criticizes the notion of seemingly conscious AI. He argues that the pursuit of this idea, particularly regarding AI model welfare, is misguided. 00:19 — Suleyman explains that these concepts are already causing mental health issues among users. He is growing: “more and more concerned about what is becoming known as the psychosis risk and a bunch of related issues. I don’t think this will be limited to those who a...
Sep 05, 2025•3 min•Ep. 540
Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud. In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I spotlight Google’s stunning 33x reduction in AI power consumption, what it means for the future of sustainable tech, and how bold innovation is driving the AI revolution forward. Highlights 00:23 — Google says it has achieved a 33x reduction in power consumption for Gemini apps’ text pro...
Sep 04, 2025•5 min•Ep. 543
Bonnie Tinder is the founder and CEO of Raven Intelligence, an independent B2B peer review site that amplifies the voice of the customer. She focuses on software customers, consulting partners, and software vendors and helps identify the best partners for their needs. In this episode, Bonnie shares seven hard-earned lessons from over 1,000 customer reviews, covering everything from data migration and partner selection to change management, over-customization, and planning beyond go-live. Episode...
Sep 03, 2025•29 min•Ep. 541
00:03 — ServiceNow has announced that it's joining forces with SENAI-SP to launch a major AI training and certification program in Brazil as part of ServiceNow University. The new program aims to train hundreds of users by 2025 contributing to the University's overall global goal of upskilling three million people by 2027. 00:30 — This new program will equip learners with technical skills in AI digital workflow automation and low-code/no-code development. Additionally, it will provide certificat...
Sep 03, 2025•2 min•Ep. 539
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I dive into Snowflake’s record-breaking Q2 performance and explore how CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy is positioning the company for long-term AI-driven success. Highlights 00:14 — Snowflake has been a remarkable story of growth and achievement—category creation here around the AI Data Cloud —and it reported last week a very strong Q2 with product revenue up 32% to $1.09 billion. That’s the first time it has topped $1 billion. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the c...
Sep 02, 2025•5 min•Ep. 542
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how explosive AI demand is driving massive infrastructure deals like the one between Google Cloud and Meta. Highlights 0:03 — Google Cloud has entered into a six-year agreement with Meta that's reportedly worth over $10 billion. The deal encompasses a variety of services, including use of Google Cloud servers, storage, and networking facilities. This is a significant deal in terms of the relationship between Meta and Google, both of which are continuously ...
Aug 29, 2025•2 min•Ep. 538
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I, along with a special partner, dive into Palantir’s explosive Q2 performance, celebrate their first billion-dollar quarter, and explain why this 21-year-old disruptor is poised to shake up the cloud industry . Highlights 00:13 — I’ve got a high-growth specialist here, Rory, my granddaughter and good buddy. We're going to talk about Palantir. Palantir, in its recently ended Q2, went over the moon: 48% growth. It had its first billion-dollar quarter. It says that LL...
Aug 28, 2025•5 min•Ep. 537
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I dive into Oracle's bold $1 billion-a-year move to power a massive AI-focused data center in West Texas using gas generators. Highlights 00:18 — Oracle is set to spend over a billion dollars a year to power a new mega data center in West Texas, using gas generators instead of waiting to be connected to the local utilities. The gas-powered site is being developed by Vantage Data Centers. It will cover 1,200 acres, house 10 data centers, and have a total capacity of ...
Aug 27, 2025•2 min•Ep. 536
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down Workday’s strong Q2 results, highlighting how AI solutions, mid-market growth, government expansion, partner-driven value, and global initiatives are fueling momentum. Highlights 00:14 — Workday recently posted a very nice fiscal Q2, ended July 31. I pulled out growth factors from the earnings call. Just a quick recap here: for Q2, its subscription revenue was up 14% to $2.17 billion, while their current RPO was up 16.4% to almost $8 billion. So, strong...
Aug 26, 2025•5 min•Ep. 535
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I break down SAP’s strategic acquisition of SmartRecruiters and what it means for the future of AI-powered talent acquisition within the SuccessFactors HCM suite. Highlights 00:03 — SAP has announced that it has agreed to acquire the talent acquisition software provider SmartRecruiters. SAP plans to integrate the company’s comprehensive suite of AI-powered talent acquisition tools into its existing SuccessFactors Human Capital Management or HCM Suite. 00:43 — Muhamm...
Aug 25, 2025•2 min•Ep. 534
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I explain how Oracle is transforming healthcare with its AI-driven, cloud-native EHR, setting a bold path toward intelligent care. Highlights 00:02 — Oracle has introduced an updated version of Oracle Health EHR , or Electronic Health Record, for ambulatory providers in the U.S., built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure . The new system features native AI agents that operate together as an orchestrated system for maximum process efficiency. 00:29 — The new Oracle Health...
Aug 22, 2025•2 min•Ep. 533
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how the four hyperscalers are now spending a billion dollars every day on CapEx to keep up with explosive AI demand. Highlights 00:19 — The four hyperscalers — AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — are now spending, as of Q2, a combined billion dollars a day on CapEx to try to keep up with explosive AI demand. Here's where these numbers come from. And I will say here, I'm calling it Q2, but Oracle's quarter ended May 31. 01:00 — But these are very close for...
Aug 21, 2025•5 min•Ep. 532
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down a major move by the U.S. government and AWS. Highlights 00:02 —The U.S. government is being given access to $1 billion in AWS credits for use until the close of 2028 to help bolster federal cloud adoption and IT modernization efforts. 00:38 — We're seeing companies in the Cloud Wars Top 10 and beyond offering the U.S. federal government massive discounts to secure contracts under the administration's AI Action Plan. Companies like DocuSign, Adobe , and ...
Aug 20, 2025•2 min•Ep. 531
Wei Hu is the Senior Vice President, High Availability Technologies, at Oracle. In today's Cloud Wars Live, Hu sits down with Bob Evans for a wide-ranging discussion on Oracle’s globally distributed database, AI-native workloads, and how Oracle is helping businesses meet data sovereignty requirements while delivering high performance, elasticity, and always-on availability across regions. Where AI Meets Your Data The Big Themes: Globally Distributed Exadata Database on Exascale : Oracle’s Global...
Aug 19, 2025•23 min•Ep. 528
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explored why the groundbreaking Oracle–Google Cloud partnership around Gemini AI marks a bold new era for multi-cloud collaboration. Highlights 00:14 — It's a brilliant move by Oracle and Google Cloud to form a partnership where Gemini AI is now available on the Oracle Cloud. Gemini on OCI is pretty wild. Both Oracle and Google compete viciously against each other. At the same time, they're both customer-centric enough to say: " ... in this other area, we're going...
Aug 19, 2025•5 min•Ep. 530
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I take a closer look at AWS’s market positioning and the narrative shared during its recent earnings call. Highlights 00:36 — I was puzzled by some of the math and the numbers that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, speaking on behalf of AWS on the Amazon earnings call , used in trying to describe the competitive position that AWS finds itself in. 01:28 — We've got AWS, now on a $123 billion annualized run rate, and which grew 17.5% in Q2, which is extremely good for a company ...
Aug 18, 2025•6 min•Ep. 529
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore AWS's bold new approach to eliminating AI hallucinations using automated reasoning and formal logic. Highlights 00:04 — AWS has announced that automated reasoning checks, a new Amazon Bedrock guardrails policy, are now generally available. In a blog post, AWS's Chief Evangelist (EMEA), Danilo Poccia said that: "Automated reasoning checks help you validate the accuracy of content generated by foundation models against domain knowledge. This can help prevent...
Aug 15, 2025•2 min•Ep. 527
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I unpack the strategy behind Microsoft’s $368B in contracted cloud business and Q4 surge. Highlights 00:39 — CEO Satya Nadella explained what was behind this huge growth in Microsoft's Azure revenue in Q4, which ended June 30. Overall cloud revenue for the quarter was up 27% to $46.7 billion. This is the first time it's ever released any revenue figures for Azure. 01:14 — Azure was up — I think it was 34% — to more than $75 billion. So, I divided four into 75, got a...
Aug 14, 2025•5 min•Ep. 526
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I cover Snowflake’s investment in Hightouch to advance agentic AI for personalized marketing. Highlights 00:03 — Snowflake Ventures , the investment arm of Snowflake, alongside Capital One Ventures , has announced an investment in Hightouch, a data and AI platform focused on personalized, targeted marketing. In 2024, Hightouch launched an agentic AI solution for lifecycle marketing called AI Decisioning. 00:35 — Adam Kaufman , Vice President, Global Head of Industry...
Aug 13, 2025•2 min•Ep. 525
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I take a closer look at what may be the biggest B2B deal in tech history, Larry Ellison’s $100B+ agreement with OpenAI. Highlights 00:15 — We've seen some extraordinary things happen with OpenAI and the alliances it has had. For the first several years of its existence, it was tightly paired with Microsoft. That has changed dramatically now, and OpenAI is now tightly entwined with Oracle. 02:01 — What Oracle said in a document it filed was that it has a cloud servic...
Aug 12, 2025•6 min•Ep. 524
In today's special edition of Cloud Wars Live, Bob Evans talks with Kris Rice, Senior Vice President, Software Development, Oracle Database, about the rapid rise of AI, the strategic impact of the new MCP Server, Oracle’s unique approach to integrating LLMs with private data, and what to expect at this year’s CloudWorld. Rice shares how Oracle is meeting developers where they are, enabling seamless AI-powered interactions with enterprise data. Inside Oracle’s MCP Strategy The Big Themes: Oracle’...
Aug 11, 2025•16 min•Ep. 520
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss Satya Nadella’s bold Q4 claim that Microsoft is the #1 cloud provider, leaving rivals to fight for second place. Highlights 00:12 — Microsoft laid out a very clear, unmistakable story in Q4 that it is the biggest and right now certainly the most powerful, most influential cloud provider. CEO Satya Nadella used the opportunity of these unprecedented financial results to spread the word that, “We’re number one, and all of the other hyperscalers — Google, Ora...
Aug 11, 2025•5 min•Ep. 523
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I highlight how the rapid rise of AI — without the right security in place — could be the biggest unseen threat to your business. Highlights 00:03 — IBM's new "Cost of a Data Breach" report has revealed that while AI adoption is on the rise, AI security and governance are lagging significantly. Suja Viswesan, Vice President, Security and Runtime Products at IBM, explains that the data shows a gap between AI adoption and oversight already exists, and threat actors ar...
Aug 08, 2025•3 min•Ep. 522
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I reveal why AWS’s growth, though strong in isolation, looks sluggish compared to its peers. Highlights 00:29 — We're seeing a distinct split looking at the Q2 numbers. We've got three sprinters — Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — and we've got one stroller, which is AWS. Now, also, just a quick detail: the first three companies — Microsoft, Google, and AWS — all follow the quarterly calendar pattern. 01:30 — Microsoft in Q1 grew 20% to $42.4 billion. In Q2, that grow...
Aug 07, 2025•6 min•Ep. 521
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down reports of a potential $1.2 billion cloud deal between Google Cloud and ServiceNow, and what it means for the ever-intensifying battle among the cloud giants. Highlights 00:04 — Google Cloud has just secured a massive cloud deal with ServiceNow worth an estimated $1.2 billion over five years. In its latest filing, ServiceNow states that it's entered into various non-cancellable agreements with cloud service providers , under which it is committed to spe...
Aug 05, 2025•2 min•Ep. 519
