Oracle Acquires Docker Container Startup StackEngine, Plans Austin-Based Cloud Computing Center

Oracle has inked an agreement to acquire StackEngine, a tiny Austin, Texas-based startup that develops management and automation tools for Docker containers.

Oracle disclosed the acquisition Friday in a bulletin on its website and said all StackEngine employees will be moving over to work in its Oracle Public Cloud unit. StackEngine has about a dozen employees listed on LinkedIn. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Docker containers blew up last year to become one of the IT industry's hottest trends, and their momentum has shown no signs of slowing. Oracle, by adding Docker containers to its cloud portfolio, is following the lead of public cloud market leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, which already support the technology.

[Related: Here's How Oracle Is Planning To Get Partners To Cloud 'Nirvana']

Some industry watchers see Docker as a potential threat to the server virtualization businesses of VMware, Microsoft and others. StackEngine also seems to subscribe to this view.

On its website, StackEngine describes its flagship product, called Container Application Center, as a way for enterprises "to transition from the costs and inefficiencies of virtualization to the flexibility, mobility and freedom of containerization."

Several members of StackEngine previously worked at CopperEgg, an Austin-based cloud startup that keeps tabs on apps running in the cloud and makes sure they're running efficiently. CopperEgg was acquired in 2013 by Idera, a Houston-based vendor of management tools for Microsoft SQL Server.

Oracle's Public Cloud portfolio includes Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service. During last week's second quarter earnings call, co-CEO Safra Catz said SaaS and PaaS billings grew 68 percent this quarter after growing 70 percent in the previous quarter.

Although Oracle last week missed Wall Street's quarterly revenue forecast for the 10th time in the past 12 quarters, the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based vendor said its overall cloud revenue grew 30 percent year over year, to $652 million.

Meanwhile, Oracle said Tuesday that it's planning to build a "next-generation technology campus" in Austin centered on cloud computing, and will boost its employee base in that city by more than 50 percent over the next few years.

Most of the jobs at the new campus will be cloud sales-oriented, and Oracle will follow its longstanding practice of recruiting college graduates and young people who are just starting out in their careers, the vendor said in a news release announcing the new initiative.

PUBLISHED DEC. 22, 2015