Online retail giant Amazon just announced a new update which allows users to run Microsoft’s database and web programming platform ASP.NET, on its Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). Amazon reveals that users can now use Microsoft tools they are accustomed to – to deploy, manage and scale SQL Server databases and ASP.NET applications. Amazon also points out that RDS presently runs SQL Server 2008 R2, with an upgrade SQL Server 2012 pending.

Charlie Bell, Vice President, Amazon Web Services, states, “Amazon RDS now supports three of the most popular relational database engines, giving businesses the flexibility to launch a managed Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or MySQL database based on the needs of their application. With Amazon RDS, customers no longer have to become experts in database set-up and management and can shift their focus to building and improving the capabilities of their applications. We’re excited to give Windows and ASP.Net developers new options for taking advantage of AWS to quickly deploy and easily manage their databases and applications in the cloud.”

Some might see this as a tactic to lure users away from Microsoft’s own Azure cloud environment. After all, the two compete – soon after Amazon launched its CloudSearch, Microsoft turned around and adapted Bing search to Azure.

In related news, a different sector under the Amazonian umbrella just beat out Netflix in a customer satisfaction survey, indicative of possible things to come, as Amazon delves further into the business of streaming content.