Subscriptions will be available globally but at launch, there will only be data centers in the U.S., according to a FAQ document. Oracle will add centers in Europe and Asia Pacific according to demand, it adds.

Oracle plans to follow common practices in how it charges for the platform services, with pricing slotted into multiple tiers and made "elastic for usage growth and shrinkage."

While Oracle has the technology required to build a credible, enterprise-class PaaS, success in that market really depends on "winning over the hearts and minds of developers," said Geva Perry, author of the and an adviser to cloud computing companies.

To this end, Oracle may make acquisitions in the PaaS space, more to gain developer user bases than technology, Perry added.

In doing this, Oracle would follow a similar path to Salesforce.com, which started out with a homegrown Force.com platform but more recently bought PaaS vendor Heroku, which has many adherents among Ruby developers.