Oracle Partners with Longtime Rivals Microsoft and Salesforce

Oracle is burying the proverbial hatchet with longtime competitors Microsoft (News - Alert) and Salesforce.com with new partnerships aimed at boosting the company’s cloud services for businesses moving their software online.

In Oracle’s (News - Alert) alliance with Microsoft, the nine-year pact encompasses all three tiers of cloud computing: applications, platform and infrastructure in which Salesforce is buying Oracle hardware and software to power its applications.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (News - Alert) said that by working with Salesforce, the two companies will give customers a way to integrate applications even from different vendors.

“We are looking forward to working with Salesforce.com (News - Alert) to integrate our cloud with theirs,” Ellison said in a statement. “When customers choose cloud applications they expect rapid low-cost implementations; they also expect application integrations to work right out of the box – even when the applications are from different vendors. That’s why Marc and I believe it’s important that our two companies work together to make it happen, and integrate the Salesforce.com and Oracle clouds.”

In a separate deal with Microsoft the software giant’s Windows Azure cloud-computing service will run Oracle’s database software, Java programming tools and application-connecting middleware, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Oracle co-President Mark Hurd (News - Alert).

Oracle apps are now certified to run on Windows Server, Hyper-V and Windows Azure. Up until recently, they were only certified to run on Windows Server. In addition, Oracle Linux also gets added to the list of Linux variants supported in Azure’s VMs. The alliance with Microsoft also allows Oracle to offer its customers the option of staying with its database and middleware at a time when businesses are moving more of their software to cloud-computing services, according to Bloomberg.

“It’s about time. We’re happy to work in newer and more constructive ways with Oracle,” Ballmer said during a call with press and analysts about the new partnership.

The software rivals have reportedly previously worked together quietly to meet customers’ needs, Ballmer said, but noted, “In the world of cloud computing, I think behind-the-scenes collaboration is not enough.”