Using the HANA in-memory data engine, salespeople can use BusinessObjects Explorer to query and drill into 12 million active customer records and 700 million historical records in real-time, versus the 4-5 hours it used to take to run a report.
One user posted a typo-ridden email from Amazon customer support that confirms a refund given on a book that user had never bought in response to a query about Beautiful Disaster.
You as a customer can use SQL and standard tools with Oracle applications, and the environment is secure (you can query, integrate, and backup the cloud at the database level, not the application level).