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Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff Suddenly Playing Nice, Weirding Everyone Out

Posted by Soulskill on from the why-aren't-mommy-and-daddy-fighting dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Once upon a time, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison took what seemed like inordinate amounts of pleasure in firing off verbal broadsides at each other. In 2011, for example, Ellison referred to Salesforce as 'the roach motel of clouds' and 'a very bad security model.' But Benioff's given as good as he's gotten, swiping at Oracle's early cloud efforts as 'cloud in a box' and 'just another server.' But oh, how things change: Ellison and Benioff have revealed that their firms would come together in a joint effort. They were on their best behavior during a conference call this week. 'The Oracle database has been a key part of Salesforce's infrastructure from the very beginning of our company 14 years ago,' Benioff told Ellison at one point, according to a transcript posted on ZDNet. 'Absolutely the best decision we ever made was to go with Oracle.' Why the sudden reversal? Simply put, after years of sticking with a hardware-and-software model, Oracle now has cloud religion. For Salesforce, the benefits are a little murkier, but some analysts think that Salesforce will be able to leverage Oracle's name to gain a heightened profile with businesses. But can Benioff and Ellison continue to play nice?"

8 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. It's Called 12c by SuilAmhain · · Score: 2

    And you won't beat it so you might as well play nice.

    True Multi Tenancy for Oracle Databases will hurt a lot of other Database/Instance providers.

    Salesforce needs 12c as much as Oracle needs a another sales guy. Period.

    1. Re:It's Called 12c by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2

      Salesforce is already running on Oracle. Salesforce is paying Oracle about 300 million for the next couple of years to continue running Oracle. I don't understand why that requires a special bro-hug to be consummated. Benioff hands over the money, Ellison hands over the hardware, and everyone continues sniping about their cloud models. Why the love fest suddenly?

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    2. Re:It's Called 12c by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      That is why I think its weird that anybody is surprised, two rich guys figure out how to make money together, news at 11...and this just in, water is wet, who knew?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. That's not so weird.. by coldandcalculating · · Score: 2

    They are merely exchanging long protein strings.

  3. First Microsoft and now Salesforce by binarylarry · · Score: 2

    This is truly the end of days, as written in the book of stallman.

    mmm tasty tasty toenail

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  4. Play nice and get a good price by abirdman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would wager Salesforce negotiated a better price on their annual Oracle license renewals in exchange for plugging the product with Larry. Kaching!

    --
    Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
    1. Re:Play nice and get a good price by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2

      But did they get enough of a good price to justify having everyone wonder wtf is going between Oracle and Salesforce? It's kinda hard to trash-talk the other team during a sales cycle if officially the captains of the two teams are best buddies.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  5. Was PostgreSQL just a bargaining chip? by dskoll · · Score: 2

    So all the mutter about a Salesforce / PostgreSQL linkup was just to scare Oracle into being nicer? I guess it worked.