In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explored why the groundbreaking Oracle–Google Cloud partnership around Gemini AI marks a bold new era for multi-cloud collaboration.

Highlights

00:14 — It's a brilliant move by Oracle and Google Cloud to form a partnership where Gemini AI is now available on the Oracle Cloud. Gemini on OCI is pretty wild. Both Oracle and Google compete viciously against each other. At the same time, they're both customer-centric enough to say: " ... in this other area, we're going to create new and significant value for customers."

01:52 — Too often, I think tech vendors get into this mindset of: "Well, they're a competitor, so I'm not going to do anything with them — even if that might make life better for customers."I think those days are over. That's why I feel this is truly transformative.

02:08 — Both executives from Google Cloud and Oracle spoke in great detail about how this partnership will make life easier for customers. They also talked about how this reflects their new philosophy: "We've got to be open. We've got to give choice — regardless of where it comes from."

03:05 — Beyond Oracle and Google Cloud, I'd love to see AWS do some things with competitors. Microsoft has done some of this, but I think there's still room for all these companies to do more. It's the best of both worlds for customers: being able to get combinations of technologies and vendor capabilities rolled into single packages.

03:41 — You're going to have both Google Cloud and Oracle salespeople now able to sell Gemini on Oracle Cloud. Just like about a year ago with the multi-cloud agreements — where Oracle Database became available on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud — those hard and fast walls that used to separate vendors from ever cooperating are coming down. And they're coming down quickly.

04:12 — What we see here is that tech vendors have to be not only world-class in the technology they're developing, but also in how they're willing to go to market in unprecedented ways to drive new and significant value for customers. That's going to be one of the primary yardsticks by which vendors are measured — not just by the power of their technology.

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