Dive Brief:

• Microsoft Corp. announced Monday that it will soon make its database software available for Linux systems for the first time.
• The company wants to both improve sales of databases and better compete with Oracle, which currently has twice the market share of Microsoft's existing database customers, according to IDC.
• Core database parts of Microsoft’s SQL Server will ship for Linux in the middle of 2017, according to Microsoft. 

Dive Insight:

Microsoft’s relationship with the Linux and open-source communities has historically been rocky. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once compared Linux to "communism" and a "cancer." But in the past few years, Microsoft has become much more willing to work with open source vendors and rival companies.

Because it offers advantages in terms of cost, control and innovation, experts predict open source tools will soon be a much higher percentage of every IT organization’s environment.

Microsoft is opening up to open source computer operating system Linux in hopes of attracting more large business customers. The move may also help the company sell more to customers that employ more than one operating system, Microsoft’s CEO said. 

"Windows Server, for all our success, we never were big in high-end computing," Satya Nadella said, according to Bloomberg. "Now, we get an opportunity to go after a big market that we never participated in."

Traditionally, Microsoft has gained customers by offering products at a lower cost than Oracle, which the company said it will continue.