Oracle execs will try to convince the universe that the company "gets" cloud computing with a series of cloud computing forums kicking off February 23 in North America.

The company has its work cut out for it.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison caused a stir with his very vocal musings about the term "cloud computing," which has been abused and misused over the past few years. In his view, cloud computing is not a revolutionary departure in the computing model but an evolution of time and resource-sharing practices. Therefore, in his opinion, Oracle already is a cloud player because its database and middleware underlie such cloudy ventures as Salesforce.com's successful Software as a Service (SaaS) business and Apple's iTunes web store.

Oracle also joined the SaaS fray years ago with its own CRM OnDemand. That offering now accounts for more than 85% of Oracle's CRM sales, according to Ray Wang, analyst with The Altimeter Group. Still, the prevailing wisdom is that Salesforce.com has taken Oracle -- and the rest of the software world -- to school with its popular online sales force automation, customer relationship management software and with its Force.com Platform as a Service (PaaS).