Oracle's Larry Ellison And Microsoft's Satya Nadella Bridge Decades-Long Rivalry

Oracle’s ORCL Larry Ellison and Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT Satya Nadella recently announced a historical collaboration, a notable moment in the tech industry as two longtime rivals join forces to expand their cloud offerings.

What Happened: The partnership between the two tech giants centers around Oracle’s Exadata hardware, a robust system containing servers for databases and storage, which finds its home inside Microsoft’s Azure data centers, the backbone of the Azure public-cloud service.

See Also: Microsoft Launches New Employee Rating System For Performance Reviews

During a virtual presentation, Ellison shared his thoughts on this momentous occasion: “It was lovely to come up here. It’s actually my first time in Redmond. It’s hard to believe. I waited till very late in my career to make this trip.” 

Nadella underlined the significance of their partnership, reflecting on his early years at Microsoft when he recognized the importance of getting Oracle onto Windows NT to drive adoption, reported CNBC.  

He said, “When I first came to Microsoft, the first week, they asked me to sort of get ISVs onto Windows NT at that time. I said, ‘There’s no way we can get ISVs onto Windows NT first without getting Oracle onto Windows NT.'”

This collaboration aims to simplify the cloud computing landscape for organizations, allowing them to store data using Oracle’s database software via Azure, eliminating the need for on-premises Oracle hardware or Oracle’s public cloud. 

Why It’s Important: While this collaboration is a historic step towards cooperation, it doesn’t mean the end of competition. 

The report noted that both companies will continue to vie for customers in the cloud-based infrastructure space, with Azure holding a more substantial and mature position. 

Oracle aims to retain its customer base even as they explore other cloud options.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Consumer Tech coverage by following this link.

Read Next: Oracle Takes on AWS and Microsoft with Nvidia Chip Investments for AI Cloud