By samdizzy

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) each are planning major cloud computing announcements on June 6. Best Guess: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and President Mark Hurd will describe how all Oracle applications can run now run as a cloud service. Red Hat, meanwhile, will likely offer an update on the OpenShift (Platform as a Service) and/or CloudForms (Infrastructure as a Service) initiatives. And could there be a Red Hat SaaS surprise coming, too?

Both Oracle and Red Hat face plenty of questions in the cloud. Now, answers are emerging.

Updated, May 31, 8:32 a.m.: Ellison yesterday said all Oracle applications will be available via the cloud effective June 6. He made the statement during the D conference, hosted by The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Hurd recently said Oracle already generates more than $1 billion in annual SaaS revenues. Most of the major SaaS providers — NetSuite and so on — run Oracle’s software as the foundation for their cloud services. And Oracle continues to crank up its own Oracle Public Cloud effort.

But Oracle Channel Chief Judson Althoff hasn’t said much about how the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized partner program will evolve to address the public cloud effort. Perhaps we’ll get some answers June 6.

Red Hat Cloud Computing

Meanwhile, Red Hat has multiple cloud initiatives under way. Obviously, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), Red Hat Storage and JBoss are core to Red Hat’s cloud aspirations. But there are two newer initiatives to track: OpenShift and CloudForms.

Red Hat earlier this month said the OpenShift strategy will have three consumption models:

And on the CloudForms front,, Red Hat claims to offer five benefits to IaaS providers:

Red Hat has clearly stated that it wants channel partners to promote OpenShift and CloudForms. To prove that point, Red Hat launched the Certified Cloud Provider partner program.

Still, Red Hat faces plenty of competition from such IaaS alternatives as OpenStack and CloudStack, and emerging PaaS options like VMware Cloud Foundry and Windows Azure.

Oracle’s challenge in the cloud is vastly different. Indeed, the company must overcome skeptics who suggest Ellison’s primary goal is to continue selling on-premises software and hardware that drives maintenance contracts.

Both Red Hat and Oracle will have their opportunity to address skeptics and answer questions on June 6.