As recently as 2009, Ellison was one of the industry's biggest cloud-bashers, questioning what the cloud really was, accusing venture investors of latching on to the latest fad and dismissing the cloud the hot fashionable buzzword of the day.

But since then Ellison's views on the cloud seem to have evolved. Today he's out and about speaking of the benefits of Oracle's ever-expanding cloud offerings. Last week he even spilled the beans on news his company will make at its OpenWorld show next week, expanding the Oracle cloud from a (SaaS) and (PaaS) play into the (IaaS) market.

Some say Ellison's disparaging views of cloud reflected the threat cloud software vendors, such as , Amazon Web Services and others, could play to Oracle. Others say it's just Larry being Larry. "Take Larry for what he is," says Michael Fauscette, an IDC analyst who covers Oracle. "He says a lot of things to be controversial." Now the question is what, if anything, Ellison's FUD-spreading in the cloud will mean for Oracle's own plans in this space.

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