Salesforce & Oracle

The Salesforce/Oracle partnership has been widely reported, but here are a few points that probably weren't:

It's symbolic for Heroku. 

When the Heroku acquisition was announced, it sure sounded like the next generation Salesforce Platform. Heroku's shared-nothing approach and open standards fix two oft-leveled criticisms of Force.com. But it's an uneasy relationship, at best, with little coordination (how long does it take you to find mention of Salesforce on the Heroku website) and departure of many key Heroku execs in recent months.

It relegates Salesforce's HR strategy to the periphery. 

Many speculated that the launch of Work.com would be the start of a full-on assault in the HR software market. But this agreement seems to boost Oracle HR applications, while Salesforce stays in their defined niche of employee perks and social performance reviews.

It's good for Workday.

Workday is already competing with Oracle. This takes away the threat of competing with Salesforce, which in some ways would be much more difficult. Sure, they lose a customer, but that's a good trade.

There's still a place for Postgres.

The Salesforce application underpinnings are in dire need of an upgrade. But who's to say Postgres won't be a part of that? I haven't seen anything that indicates this is an exclusive relationship, even if it is for 9 years...