Oracle succumbs to Salesforce and Google models

The old line software companies like Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) have always favored the idea of their products running on their customers' computers and servers.

The notion of "remote computing," where the customer has access to the products over the internet, scares firms like Oracle because clients may be tempted to use only the parts of the software offerings that they need, instead of licensing a whole package.