Oracle quietly purchased StackEngine on 18 December, as part of an effort to boost its Platform as a Service offerings, TechCrunch reported. StackEngine, based in Austin, Texas, said on its site that all of its employees will be joining Oracle. Separately, Oracle announced it was going to build a cutting-edge cloud campus in Austin, Texas and start a hiring drive to push its cloud expansion strategy and attract talent.
StackEngine was founded last year by industry veterans, coming out with a plan to operationalise Docker, the open source container system. StackEngine said Docker lacked an administrative layer for IT pros to manage their containers. Market watchers say the Oracle buy is likely part of a bigger public cloud game plan.
In Austin, the company plans to extend its team by more than 50 percent over the next few years. Job opportunities will largely be driven by growth in Oracle’s cloud sales organisation, Oracle Direct. Recruitment efforts will focus on recent university graduates and technical professionals at early stages in their career.
Oracle plans to collaborate with local firms to design and build the campus in a phased approach which will include consolidation of its facilities from Oregon. During phase one, the 560,000-square-foot complex and parking development will be constructed on the waterfront of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake. An adjacent 295-unit apartment building will be purchased for employee housing options and to support a work-life balance.
