eBay, Microsoft Team Up in the Cloud

Posted 07/14/2010 at 4:50am | by Paul Lilly

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Two industry heavyweights -- online auction giant eBay and software juggernaut Microsoft -- will do business with each other in the cloud. Specifically, eBay has signed on to be one of the first customers of Microsoft's new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing, the two companies jointly announced.

"Microsoft’s focus on and investment in the Windows Azure platform appliance shows it is committed to world-class cloud computing solutions. eBay has the right blueprint for next-generation software-as-a-service-based applications with our platform’s architecture, scale and reliability, " said James Barrese, eBay vice president of technology. "Joint engineering on the Windows Azure platform appliance with eBay’s massive, high-volume systems allows Microsoft to demonstrate its leadership in this space and helps eBay improve our user experience through a flexible, scalable and cost-effective solution."

The Windows Azure platform appliance is comprised of Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure, and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage, and server hardware. eBay will use the platform to deploy certain applications on a public cloud, and in fact the online auction site already uses the Windows Azure platform to host its page for iPad listings at http://ipad.ebay.com.