As co-president of Oracle, Mark Hurd is tasked with selling an ever-increasing array of new software and hardware products, such as the Exadata database machine and Fusion Applications, while figuring out how to keep the company’s vast installed base happy and fending off competition from the likes of SAP.

Hurd spoke to IDG News Service on a variety of topics during an interview at the Collaborate user group conference in Denver. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.

IDGNS: Oracle has said there are more than 400 customers of Fusion Applications, which became generally available in October 2011. Are you happy with the rate of Fusion Applications adoption?

Hurd: We sort of think of it in different categories. If we went to HCM [human capital management], we think we’re doing quite well. In terms of cloud, SaaS deals, we think we’re winning all deals internationally in HCM. We think we’re doing quite well now in the U.S. We’ve got a great team, our product is maturing, we’ve got lots of go-lives, references, etcetera. In sales automation, we have a tougher competitor. We’ve made a number of acquisitions in the social space. We’re integrating those into sales automation. We’re going to market later with that product than with HCM, and that’s the place where we’re really driving hard for more business. We don’t typically think of Fusion Apps as a single thing. We think of it more in these various pillars.

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