Oracle has bought a minority stake in platform as a service provider Engine Yard. San Francisco-based Engine Yard offers a cloud development platform that runs on Amazon and Terremark cloud computing services. In the official announcement Oracle said it will work closely with Engine Yard “to provide cloud application developers with a greater choice of development and deployment options. The two companies are expected to connect their respective PaaS offerings to enable more rapid development in a secure, reliable and scalable environment.”
InformationWeek’s Charles Babcock speculated, “Developers who wish to produce database-intensive services on Engine Yard may one day be able to produce custom additions for Oracle packaged applications. The Oracle applications might be either running on a customer’s premises or from Oracle’s own SaaS. Engine Yard PaaS services could ensure that a new service would scale to meet demands placed on it.”
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.