Oracle Previews New App Store for Cloud Builders

SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle has joined the App Store Operators Club.

Well, OK, this is not exactly a formal organization at this time, but if IT companies keep moving to this business model, a new industry group like this may someday need to exist.

Thanks to the continued widespread deployment of cloud, mobile and social applications, enterprises are looking for easier secure access to trusted business applications, and they need equally trusted places to find them. New cloud-based apps can be used to conduct business with partners, value-added resellers, contractors and customers, or for any function a company deems relevant.

Marketplace in Preview Mode for Now

At its OpenWorld conference here at Moscone Center, Oracle on Sept. 24 previewed its new Cloud Marketplace. Stocked with a little more than 100 cloud-building applications developed by Oracle partners, the Oracle Cloud Marketplace enables Oracle Cloud customers to browse for functionality, evaluate multiple apps and then buy what they need. Partners then can develop, integrate, publish and monetize their specific applications.

Oracle is offering the new database service at three participation levels: Basic, Managed and Premium Managed. All three options are currently listed as “preview” stage, and they won’t be ready for prime time until later this fall.

Cloud Marketplace is Oracle’s direct competitor to public cloud services providers such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Salesforce.com and others. Using Oracle Cloud Platform Services, Oracle partners can develop applications, integrate with Oracle software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, and publish them in the Cloud Marketplace to reach Oracle customers.

Becoming a Cloud Contender

Naturally, this is all about building the Oracle Cloud into something that can truly contend with AWS for market share, and there are many IT people who’d like to see somebody—anybody—step up and challenge the world’s largest cloud-service provider, which is said to own about two-thirds of the world market.

“The Oracle Cloud Marketplace is specifically designed to help organizations quickly and easily find, evaluate and purchase the applications they need to reach their business goals,” said Steve Miranda, Oracle’s executive vice president of applications development. “As the perfect distribution channel for cloud applications, it also creates opportunities for our partners by enabling them to easily develop, integrate, publish and monetize their innovative applications.”

The Redwood City, Calif.-based all-purpose IT products and services provider, entered the cloud-services business in June 2012, six years after Amazon launched its Web services business.