AWS Moving Away From Oracle Database?

How you like me now? Oracle, perhaps the most vocal of AWS competitors, has made it no secret that it wants to do all it can to pull customers away from the Amazon cloud.

But it looks like Amazon itself is moving away from Oracle.

The two companies have been practically at war with each other, even though Amazon does a fair amount of business with the database titan each quarter. Even as Oracle has been bringing to market several innovative new solutions in the hopes of signing up new users for its cloud platform.

Amid all this tussle are choice words from Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO, who is never shy to make colorful remarks about the situation.

In fact, Ellison is cited as the reason for this move, even though he seems convinced that no one is moving away from its database. This is what he said on Oracle’s earnings conference call last month:

“Let me tell you who’s not moving off of Oracle, a company you’ve heard of that gave us another $50 million this last — this quarter to buy Oracle Database and other Oracle technologies. That company is Amazon. They’re not moving off of Oracle. Salesforce isn’t moving off of Oracle. Our competitors, who have no reason to like us very much, continue to invest in and run their entire business on Oracle. I don’t know who’s moving off of Oracle. Maybe Mark does. Maybe Safra does. But Amazon — you’d think Amazon would really want to move.”

You just have to admire the confidence!

Nevertheless, according to some new intelligence, both Amazon and Salesforce are planning on entirely eliminating Oracle software from crucial business systems and replacing it with open source database software alternatives.

Amazon for its part has already transitioned two internal databases that handle its ecommerce operations. The open source NoSQL is the database of choice for the retail giant.

Salesforce, on the other hand, is developing an internal database, appropriately codenamed Sayonara for its customer management and marketing automation software. That said, it only plans to end its reliance on Oracle by 2023, no earlier.

Unsurprising, considering the fact that the Oracle database is considered to be the best in the world, but with cheaper alternatives now available, its reputation has been overshadowed by price.

Of course, Amazon and Salesforce are two companies that are in alliance against Oracle. But even though they may remain customers for the foreseeable future, it is very likely that things will change.