Two companies that were fierce rivals are now going to be working together.
Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. today decided to do something about all those cloud vendors hammering at their traditional business software products.
The major piece of the partnership will allow Oracle software to work on Windows Server Hyper-V and in Windows Azure. Customers will be able to deploy Oracle software — including Java, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server — on Windows Server Hyper-V or in Windows Azure and receive full support from Oracle.
Oracle will also have to certify and support Oracle software — including Java, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server — on Windows Server Hyper-V and in Windows Azure. In turn, Microsoft will also offer Java, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server to Windows Azure customers, and Oracle will make Oracle Linux available to Windows Azure customers.
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The thought here is that Java developers, channel partners and businesses might be able to benefit from the flexibility to deploy fully supported Oracle software to Windows Server Hyper-V and Windows Azure.
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said the company is 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.
“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,” he said.
Oracle President Mark Hurd, said IT environments are changing rapidly and to meet the dynamic nature of the world today a partnership with Microsoft was necessary.
“At Oracle, 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,” Hurd said.
How much is all this worth? We wont know as both Oracle and Microsoft did not reveal any financial aspects of this partnership.
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For more on how senior managers should think about the cloud, view this episode of CIO TV: The way CIOs need to think about the cloud