Top 5 Cloud Computing , Engine Yard , 4/5

Engine Yard is a San Francisco, California based, privately held^[1] platform as a service company focused on Java, Ruby on Rails,PHP and Node.js deployment and management.

History

Engine Yard, founded in 2006, offers a cloud application management platform.^[2] Engine Yard co-founders include Tom Mornini, Lance Walley and Ezra Zygmuntowicz.^[3]

John Dillon joined Engine Yard as CEO in 2009, and previously held the position of CEO at Salesforce from 1999 through 2001.^[4]

In August 2011, Engine Yard acquired Orchestra.io to add PHP expertise to the Engine Yard team and platform.^[5] In September 2011, the company launched a partner program that includes over 40 cloud technology companies. These partners provide add-on services—application performance management, email deliverability, load testing and more—within the Engine Yard Platform.

In November 2011, the company added the Node.js server-side framework into its PaaS.^[6]

In early 2012, Engine Yard reported that its revenue doubled year over year to $28 million in 2011, and the number of paying customers rose 50 percent to 2,000 in that time.^[6]Engine Yard claims that with its $28 million in revenue for 2011 it is the leading open platform as a service.^[7]

In June 2013, Engine Yard formed a strategic alliance with Microsoft ^[8] and went live on Windows Azure marketplace on July 31, 2013. Developers can use this open source Platform-as-a-Service running on Microsoft cloud infrastructure to deploy web and mobile apps.

Engine Yard sponsors a number of open-source projects…

Funding

In January 2008, Engine Yard received an investment of $3.5 million from Benchmark Capital. Some industry commentators interpreted this as an investment in Ruby on Rails.^[9]

In July 2008, Engine Yard secured an additional $15 million from a combination of Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Amazon.^[10]

In October 2009, Engine Yard received an additional $19 million in funding from a combination of Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Amazon, Bay Partners, Presidio Ventures and DAG Ventures, for a total of $37.5 million in funding.

In November 2012, Oracle Corporation announced that it made a strategic minority investment in Engine Yard. Financial details of the investment were not disclosed. Engine Yard continues to operate as an independent company.