Microsoft, Oracle Announce Cloud Computing Partnership
Once bitter rivals in the high-tech world, Oracle and Microsoft announced on Monday that they would be joining forces in order to improve both companies’ standing in the growing world of cloud computing.
According to Reuters reporters Noel Randewich and Bill Rigby, the agreement will allow customers to run Oracle software on the Redmond, Washington-based company’s Server Hyper-V and on Windows Azure platforms.
Furthermore, Microsoft will offer the Redwood City, California firm’s Java, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server to Windows Azure customers, and Oracle Linux to Windows Azure customers, the two parties announced. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Barb Darrow of GigaOm called the deal “a dramatic step” for Oracle, noting that the company has in the past “strongly discouraged” their customers from using anything but Oracle VM virtualization – even going so far as to ask those calling for customer support to prove that their issues were actually related to Oracle software and not a third-party product.
“This deal is both bigger than and less than what had been anticipated,” Darrow said.
“Last week, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison indicated on the company’s earnings call that third parties ‘like Microsoft’ would utilize new multitenancy and other goodies in the upcoming Oracle
“No mention of that was made on Monday, although it is still possible,” she added. “But folks… expected today’s news to be about Oracle’s databases running on Windows Azure – and the fact that its WebLogic application server and applications would run there too was a surprise – even though it shouldn’t have been.”
According to Shira Ovide and Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claims that the collaboration between the two firms isn’t exactly new. He said that his company and Oracle have long worked together, quietly, in order to make sure that Oracle databases worked on servers using Microsoft operating software.
However, Ballmer added that more needed to be done to make sure that both companies remained relevant as more and more computer functions are being completed over the Web in what is commonly referred to as the cloud. He said that the companies’ “behind the scenes collaboration” was no longer enough in an era where customers expect all of their cloud-based products and services to work together seamlessly.
“Microsoft is deeply committed to giving businesses what they need, and clearly that is the ability to run enterprise workloads in private clouds, public clouds and, increasingly, across both,” the Microsoft CEO said in a statement. “Now our customers will be able to take advantage of the flexibility our unique hybrid cloud solutions offer for their Oracle applications, middleware and databases, just like they have been able to do on Windows Server for years.”
“Our customers’ IT environments are changing rapidly to meet the dynamic nature of the world today,” added Oracle President Mark Hurd. “We are committed to providing greater choice and flexibility to customers by providing multiple deployment options for our software, including on-premises, as well as public, private, and hybrid clouds. This collaboration with Microsoft extends our partnership and is important for the benefit of our customers.”
