Dive Brief:

• Salesforce and Amazon are both planning on entirely eliminating Oracle software from crucial business systems and replacing it "with open-source database software alternatives," reports The Information. Oracle Founder and CTO Larry Ellison's colorful remarks about the companies in the past is said to have impacted the move. 
• Amazon already transitioned two internal databases that take care of its e-commerce operation to open-source NoSQL, reports Bloomberg. Salesforce is developing an internal database — code-named "Sayonara" — for its customer management and marketing automation software. Salesforce plans to end its reliance on Oracle by 2023. 
• Oracle's database is currently considered the top in the world, according to The Information, but its reputation is overshadowed by price. There are now cheaper alternatives for customers. 

Dive Insight:

Ellison has long touted that major tech companies such as Salesforce and Amazon use Oracle's database. However, this boasting reportedly prompted the move to create internal databases apart from Oracle's more established one.

Though Oracle has held the reigns of the database market for decades, the rollercoaster of Ellison's remarks proved to be enough. In 2016, Ellison publicly stated at the Oracle OpenWorld event that Oracle outperformed AWS in primary functions with its Database as a Service model. 

Though Oracle made Gartner's Magic Quadrant, it is still far behind AWS, and analysts warn that Oracle has "a bare-bones minimum viable product." 

Salesforce is no safer than Amazon from Ellison's combative criticisms. While Ellison acknowledges that Salesforce's race to SaaS dominance is impressive, he maintains that the company is not attracting new customers and that Oracle outpaces its growth. Salesforce's product line, which does not have an ERP, is at the root of some of Ellison's remarks.

Oracle has long feared the business that the cloud could take away from it. Applications are being developed for the cloud-based infrastructure, and Oracle faces losing more traction behind AWS, Google and Microsoft.