Oracle has appointed Microsoft veteran Doug Smith to lead its partner strategy, as the cloud infrastructure giant looks to drive revenue and customer satisfaction.
According to an internal memo seen by CRN, Smith joins the business corporate operations team as senior vice president and head of Strategic Partnerships.
In his new role, Smith will be responsible for developing a partner strategy for cloud alliances and relationships with independent software vendors, the memo said.
Working closely with the strategic alliances and inbound licensing teams, Oracle hopes the appointment will help drive revenue and customer satisfaction.
Smith joins the company after spending the last 16 years at Microsoft, occupying his most recent position of general manager and partner for Cloud and AI Business Development for more than eight years.
In the role, he was tasked with driving strategic partnerships and acquisitions for Microsoft Azure Cloud, as well as artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, blockchain and application platforms.
According to Smith's LinkedIn profile, he was responsible for "creating, architecting and executing custom alliances, partnerships and acquisitions that drove new, creative and collaborative product, service, sales, and marketing opportunities for Microsoft and its global strategic partners."
Prior to that, Smith also held the positions of CFO of Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group, as well as finance director of Global Research and Development. He joined Microsoft back in 2004, having previously held finance and business advisory roles at Intel and PwC.
Oracle is gearing up to release its earnings report for its fiscal third quarter, which ended in February. According to industry observers, the firm is expected to announce strong growth thanks to positive performances from its database, applications and cloud businesses.
