Days after Oracle missed first-quarter 2023 revenue expectations and offered a pessimistic outlook for the rest of the year, sending its stock price into its worst daily performance in 21 years, the provider of cloud announced a partnership with Microsoft to co-locate part of its infrastructure in the Azure cloud.
The unusual novelty offering Called Oracle Database@Azure (presumably with an at symbol for emphasis), it gives customers access to Oracle database services running on Oracle hardware and deployed in Azure data centers.
Oracle says Oracle Database@Azure is designed to unite Oracle's database product with Azure's "security, flexibility, and best-in-class services," including Azure services co-developed with close AI collaborator Oracle. Microsoft, OpenAI.
“We are very excited to partner with Microsoft to take the hardware and software used in Oracle Cloud, and literally and physically move it to Azure Data Centers,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison during a press conference with the Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “This will be like placing the hardware and software directly in the Azure data center.”
Details of the new offer they still are lazy But in a press release, Oracle said Oracle Database@Azure will provide “more options” for Oracle customers to move their databases to the cloud, including a new “fully integrated” experience for deploying, managing and using database instances. Oracle databases within Azure.
At launch, Oracle Database@Azure will support a variety of existing Oracle database services, including Oracle Exadata Database Services, Oracle Autonomous Database Services, and Oracle Real Application Clusters, and It will come with a “joint support” guarantee from Oracle and Microsoft to deliver resolution for any mission-critical workload.
Customers will be able to purchase Oracle Database@Azure through the Azure Marketplace and use existing Oracle Database licensing benefits. Oracle will operate and manage its services directly within Microsoft's data centers globally, starting with regions in North America and Europe.
“Many enterprise applications that have Oracle Database probably have some front-end middleware, even at Microsoft,” Nadella said. "We listened to customers and customers said, 'We want this option on top of everything you're doing.' “I think this will fundamentally accelerate migration to the cloud.”
That's an optimistic prediction, considering the extent to which Oracle's database market share has eroded in recent years, despite the company's notorious blocking tactics. The number of database software options has exploded and a large number of companies have successfully built subscription businesses around managing popular open source database solutions such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB and MySQL for their customers. .
According to Gartner, Oracle's share of the database market decreased from 36,1% in 2017 to just 20,6% in 2021, as Oracle spent billions and billions in infrastructure.
Oracle is certainly feeling the pressure. In April, the company made its database was free for developers will try it out, a move intended to foster goodwill with the database engineering community. Perhaps Oracle Database@Azure will also strengthen its customer base, or at least make older customers think twice before jumping ship.
However, with the loss of big customers like AWS and Salesforce in recent years, it won't be so easy for Oracle to reverse its fortunes, with or without the Azure partnership.
