IBM’s cloud just got two more big endorsements.

SugarCRM Inc. today announced that customers can deploy its namesake customer relationship management (CRM) platform across IBM’s global network of cloud-based data centers. That gives customers the option of deploying the application on everything from hosted private cloud environments to on-premise clouds to bare-metal cloud servers, the latter being a unique feature of IBM’s SoftLayer cloud computing platform.

“IT strategy should not be held hostage by vendors who offer a proprietary, multi-tenant cloud configuration as the only option,” said Clint Oram, SugarCRM co-founder and chief technology officer, in a clear shot at rival Salesforce.com Inc. Since upping its commercial game and ending its practice of open-sourcing new technology two years ago, SugarCRM has been emphasizing customer choice in its marketing messages, targeted regulated industries in particular. The company also appears to be deemphasizing the “CRM” part of its name as it expands its scope into workflow and other related areas.

SugarCRM is positioning the IBM cloud option as being particularly appealing to organizations in industries that must follow strict rules about how and where data is managed. Organizations that deploy SugarCRM on IBM Cloud bare metal servers can choose their data centers down to the exact country and city—and even identify the serial number on their server—giving them granular control over their cloud deployments and data location, the company said.

Customers also have the option of using IBM’s OpenStack-based managed private clouds as an on-premise service or as a dedicated hosted service. The two companies have had a long-standing strategic partnership.

VMware Horizon Air to ride on IBM

Building on a partnership announced in February, IBM and VMware Inc. jointly announced that VMware Horizon Air will be available as cloud hosted desktop and application services via the IBM cloud. Horizon Air delivers virtual Windows desktops or published applications to desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. By using the IBM cloud, customers will be able to access apps and data from any device at any time, the companies said. The agreement also enables customers to move in stages from an-premise virtual desktop deployment to global scale while still meeting regional regulatory rules. Pricing will be on a monthly subscription basis. The service will be available in the third quarter.

“All of our joint customers, large and small, in all verticals across geographies will be able to provision, deploy and manage cloud-post-Windows and browser-based applications and virtual desktops from the IBM cloud,” said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, IBM Cloud. “In addition to our clients, we have thousands of common partners who will benefit from this offering.”

Horizon Air, which VMware picked up with the acquisition of Desktone Inc. in 2013, was notably absent from the long list of services that VMware and IBM agreed to jointly support via the cloud and their February announcement. VMware gave no reason for that omission. The February announcement was notable because IBM and VMware had once been rivals in public cloud. With VMware’s virtualization technology used in an estimated 80 percent of the world’s data centers, the partnership is crucial to furthering IBM’s hybrid cloud ambitions.