Speaking on Oracle's earnings conference call Wednesday, Ellison said he had read news articles about the slowing adoption of SOA. But he stressed that SOA requires a change in architecture, which takes time to implement.

"While I've read [these articles], people have to understand when you have a fundamentally new computer software architecture, SOA, it takes a long time for adoption," Ellison said. Moving to SOA is not as easy as flipping a switch, he said.