Also, the new PaaS services Kurian announced Tuesday are all either in preview mode, or will enter a preview phase later this year.

But over time, Oracle's intention is to give developers who use its PaaS a way to add rich functionality to their applications without leaving the Oracle universe. The new cloud services include Oracle Planning and Budgeting; Oracle Financial Reporting; Data and Insight; Social Sites; Developer Cloud; Storage Cloud; and Messaging Cloud.

Data and Insight will bring together "insightful and intelligent data from enterprise, social and external sources," according to Oracle. While Kurian didn't make the comparison, this description sounds like the Social Key offering recently announced by rival Salesforce.com, whose Force.com platform is an obvious competitor for Oracle's cloud.

Meanwhile, Developer Cloud broadens the array of tools available to developers and development teams, providing source control management, continuous integration and other capabilities.

Storage Cloud will give customers the means to "store and manage digital content in the cloud, integrated with other Oracle Cloud services that require online storage," Oracle said.