Oracle earlier this year held talks with VMware about a deal that would have allowed VMware’s computing, storage and networking software to run on Oracle’s cloud service, making Oracle more appealing for businesses already using VMware software in their data centers, according to a person with knowledge of the talks.

But the talks fell apart this summer, depriving Oracle of a chance to improve its competitive position against Amazon Web Services and other companies, the person said. AWS has a similar deal with VMware, which makes it easier for VMware customers to shift computing work to AWS.