Oracle and Salesforce Form Broad Cloud Alliance - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD

Another dimension of the CRM + ORCL deal

"Salesforce will run on Oracle’s version of Linux, and its cloud applications will be running on ExaData-branded hardware. The ExaData buy in particular should be a shot in the arm for Oracle’s hardware business, which it has been building up since its 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Last week, on a conference call with analysts, Oracle CFO Safra Catz predicted that the hardware division would start growing after numerous quarters of revenue declines, as soon as this quarter. Now we can see what she meant by that. As the biggest provider of software-as-a-service, Salesforce is giving Oracle’s Exa line of hardware a pretty ringing endorsement that other companies may want to follow. And as Om Malik noted today, it’s a loss for Dell, whose hardware Salesforce had used previously."

Oracle and Salesforce Form Broad Cloud Alliance - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsD