Oracle promises 'next-gen' Texas cloud campus

Oracle has unveiled plans for what looks like the first-of-its kind “next-generation technology” campus inside the US.

The database giant has selected Austin, Texas, for a development that will comprise offices plus “affordable” staff accommodation.

Austin is home to StackEngine, the Docker container-management startup Oracle revealed it had bought for addition to its public cloud.

Oracle will expand its existing headcount in the city of 1,500 by more than half with the development, it said, although it seems staff will mostly be on the sales side.

“Oracle will expand its team in Austin by more than 50 per cent over the next few years. Job opportunities will largely be driven by growth in Oracle’s cloud sales organization, Oracle Direct. Recruitment efforts will focus on recent university graduates and technical professionals at early stages in their career,” Oracle said in a statement.

Oracle Direct consists of sales and technical people, with account managers working on pre- and post-sales with customers and partners.

Based in Dublin, Oracle Direct operates in six regions with offices in Malaga, Prague, Moscow and Dubai. Austin looks to be the database giant’s first such office in the US.

While Oracle has been growing on cloud, like so many others, the giant badly needs to increase the size of that revenue.

Sales from cloud remain tiny – hundreds of millions of dollars - versus the mainstay, on-prem business that’s measured in billions and that has been seen sales falling each quarter.

Oracle's corporate HQ is in Redwood Shores, California, but Austin has been on the map as a tech hub for some time, with Silicon Valley execs shuttling between there and California’s towns and cities.

The city's tech status is boosted by its geographic location - not far from Texas A&M, the university that claimed in 2013 to be third behind MIT and UC Berkeley in terms of research spending with $955m.

Other firms based in the area include ARM Holdings, AMD, Amazon, Dell and IBM, but Oracle is among the largest.

It’s becoming a big startup scene, too

The Austin Technology Council is reported to expect 11,754 tech jobs to be created in the city in the next five years. Ethernet daddy Bob Metcalfe is a cheerleader for Texas A&M and Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering, saying he wants to build a "better" Silicon Valley.

Startups and big names have been locating to Austin thanks to favourable tax and development and the presence of venture capital.

These are the types of firms and talent Oracle will be looking to partner with and sell to in and around the Austin.

Oracle will almost certainly have been lured to the city, however, through a combination of grants and tax breaks offered by the city.

It reportedly got $1.67bn in sweeteners to expand in 2013. ®