Microsoft announced at its Ignite conference that it’s entering into a partnership with Adobe Inc. that will see the two companies promote each other’s cloud products.

Adobe said that Microsoft Azure is now its “preferred cloud platform” for its products, and will make popular software tools like Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud available on the platform. That deal is not exclusive, as many of Adobe’s products can be found on Amazon Web Services’ cloud too, but it’s a big advantage for Microsoft as Adobe will now pitch Microsoft’s platform to its customers as the best cloud choice.

Microsoft will return the favor by designating Adobe’s Marketing Cloud as its “preferred marketing service” for Dynamics 365, which companies use to track sales leads and relationships with customers. Microsoft will recommend to those companies that they use Adobe Marketing Cloud when they want to use their Dynamics 365 data on marketing campaigns, for example.

The partnership will help Microsoft and Adobe in their fight against Salesforce.com Inc., whose flagship Salesforce Sales Cloud product is the main rival to Dynamics 365. Salesforce also competes with Adobe with its Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The collaboration therefore makes sense because Microsoft doesn’t have a serious marketing platform to compete with Salesforce, and Adobe lacks a sales software product.

The partnership helps Adobe and Microsoft to present a unified front in their battle against Salesforce, and also against Oracle Corp., whose growing cloud presence could yet be a cause for concern for both companies.

In addition, the partnership should make it easier for Adobe’s customers to take advantage of Microsoft’s advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) around its Marketing Cloud data, meaning Adobe can attempt to rival Salesforce’s recently announced Einstein AI platform.

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