????馬克?赫德戲劇性地辭去惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard）CEO的職務(wù)之后不久，便加入了大型科技公司甲骨文（Oracle），如今他擔(dān)任公司聯(lián)席總裁已有三年時(shí)間。赫德現(xiàn)在扮演的角色是實(shí)施更為典型的營(yíng)運(yùn)模式：甲骨文已經(jīng)意識(shí)到，它就像是一個(gè)巨人，要與身段靈活的科技界新貴進(jìn)行競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。甲骨文不僅要面臨企業(yè)云計(jì)算公司Salesforce.com和人力資源軟件開(kāi)發(fā)商Workday等公司的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，還要與IBM和SAP等規(guī)模相當(dāng)?shù)墓菊归_(kāi)激烈角逐。（甲骨文生產(chǎn)數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)軟件，以及其他配合數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)軟件使用的應(yīng)用；Salesforce和Workday僅開(kāi)發(fā)在線應(yīng)用，其中前者專注于銷售任務(wù)，后者專注于人力資源。IBM和SAP的軟件產(chǎn)品與甲骨文類似。）

????傳統(tǒng)軟件企業(yè)競(jìng)相與云計(jì)算領(lǐng)域的新興公司結(jié)盟，或者爭(zhēng)奪作為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務(wù)提供的軟件，而不是安裝在客戶電腦上的程序。業(yè)界普遍認(rèn)為，甲骨文對(duì)云技術(shù)的反應(yīng)遲緩。實(shí)際上，這家公司執(zhí)行了積極的收購(gòu)策略，包括2010年，以超過(guò)70億美元出人意料地收購(gòu)服務(wù)器制造商太陽(yáng)計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)公司（Sun Microsystems）。轉(zhuǎn)移到云對(duì)大企業(yè)而言有些難度，就好像讓航空母艦調(diào)頭一樣，其中很大程度上是由于互聯(lián)網(wǎng)軟件通常成本更低。這對(duì)客戶是好事，但卻給銷售人員帶來(lái)了麻煩。甲骨文的銷售團(tuán)隊(duì)便由赫德親自負(fù)責(zé)，他在職業(yè)早期還曾擔(dān)任過(guò)銷售主管。

????在甲骨文開(kāi)放世界（Oracle Open World）開(kāi)發(fā)者大會(huì)召開(kāi)的前夜，在位于加州紅木海岸的辦公室里，馬克?赫德接受了《財(cái)富》雜志（Fortune）的專訪。預(yù)計(jì)在9月22日至26日期間，舊金山市的交通會(huì)因未這個(gè)規(guī)模龐大的會(huì)議陷入混亂。赫德提到了甲骨文的現(xiàn)狀，包括向云技術(shù)的轉(zhuǎn)變，以及為什么甲骨文能夠擊敗競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手，甲骨文是否會(huì)放棄硬件等等。以下為對(duì)話摘要，為了簡(jiǎn)潔，我們對(duì)談話內(nèi)容進(jìn)行了編輯，同時(shí)添加了注釋。

甲骨文本屆開(kāi)放世界大會(huì)有哪些亮點(diǎn)？

????首先，大會(huì)將有60,000人參加，這是亮點(diǎn)之一。據(jù)我所知，這次大會(huì)能將這么多人匯集一堂，堪稱業(yè)內(nèi)規(guī)模最大的一次IT業(yè)盛會(huì)。借助此次盛會(huì)，我們將擁有一個(gè)非常龐大的合作伙伴生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。所以，大家會(huì)看到戴爾（Dell）、德勤（Deloitte）和EMC。富士通公司（Fujitsu）也會(huì)出現(xiàn)在大會(huì)上。大家會(huì)看到我們龐大的合作伙伴陣容。我們還有重量級(jí)的客戶發(fā)言人。我會(huì)發(fā)表一個(gè)演講，發(fā)言的還有空中客車公司（Airbus）CEO，以及紐約證交所（New York Stock Exchange）CEO等等。

你會(huì)重點(diǎn)介紹哪些產(chǎn)品？

????我們會(huì)談到甲骨文將推出內(nèi)存數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)這個(gè)事實(shí)。（它是指將數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)信息存儲(chǔ)在內(nèi)存芯片上而非磁盤(pán)驅(qū)動(dòng)器上的能力，類似于數(shù)年前，蘋(píng)果的iPod促成了機(jī)械驅(qū)動(dòng)向更小的閃存轉(zhuǎn)變。）我們發(fā)布了名為12C的新數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)產(chǎn)品。這是第12代甲骨文數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)。C代表云。內(nèi)存數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)將是一個(gè)重要的主題。

????Mark Hurd has been co-president of mega-cap technology company Oracle for three years now, having joined shortly after his dramatic exit as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Hurd's dramas these days are the more typical business type: Oracle's coming to grips that it is a giant competing against nimbler upstarts. Oracle faces competition from the likes of Salesforce.com (CRM) and Workday (WDAY) as well as more size-appropriate challengers IBM and SAP. (Oracle makes database software and many applications that run with it; Salesforce and Workday are online-only application makers, with the former focused on sales tasks and the latter on human resources. IBM and SAP have software offerings similar to Oracle's.)

????The incumbents have been scrambling to match the newbies in "cloud" computing, or software that is offered as an Internet service rather than as programs installed on a customer's computers. Oracle (ORCL) is generally perceived to have been slow to respond to the cloud, having instead pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy that included the unlikely 2010 purchase of server maker Sun Microsystems for more than $7 billion. Moving to the cloud is tough all around for big companies -- like turning the proverbial aircraft carrier -- in part because Internet software generally costs less. That's great for customers, but tough for salespeople, and Hurd, a sales executive earlier in his career, oversees Oracle's sales force.

????In an interview in his Redwood Shores, Calif., office, Hurd spoke with Fortune on the eve of Oracle's massive Oracle Open World developers' conference, which promises to snarl traffic throughout San Francisco from Sept. 22 to 26. Hurd addressed the state of Oracle, including the shift to the cloud, why Oracle will beat its competitors, and whether or not Oracle will abandon hardware. Edited for concision and annotated for explanation, a transcript of the conversation follows.

What will be the highlights at Oracle Open World?

????First of all, it'll be a highlight that we have 60,000 people. It'll be the biggest IT event that I'm aware of ever in the industry to have that many people in one location. We'll have a very large partner ecosystem there. So you'll see Dell (DELL), Deloitte, and EMC (EMC) there. Fujitsu will be there. You'll see a very large cast of partners that will participate. We have a huge list of customer speakers. I'll be doing a speech, and I'll have the CEO of Airbus with me. And the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange too.

And products will you be focusing on?

????We're going to go talk about the fact that we're going to now have in-memory options for our database. [This refers to the ability to store database information on memory chips rather than on disc drives, analogous to the why Apple's iPods shifted years ago from bigger mechanical drives to smaller flash-memory.] We have released a new database called 12C. It is the 12th generation of the Oracle database. The C is for cloud. In-memory will be a big theme.