eBay will start using Microsoft’s cloud computing platform appliance Windows Azure in their datacenters starting this year. The announcement came today at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC.
eBay has already been testing Microsoft’s cloud computing platform by hosting – somewhat ironically – their iPad listings store http://ipad.ebay.com. The new agreement, however, means that the Windows Azure appliance will be installed directly into eBay’s datacenters, with both companies putting in engineering expertise to make the overall system work.
If you’re not familiar with what Windows Azure is, read our previous coverage of the platform.
Obviously the big news here is: eBay isn’t going with Amazon. Of course, eBay and Amazon are competitors to a certain degree, so that makes a bit of sense, but still, Microsoft has got to be very pleased to have such a high profile partner to highlight that they are firmly in the cloud computing race.
If you want to hear more about this agreement, here’s a video:
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