It looks like Salesforce is doing something about that.
On Friday, Salesforce started looking for engineers skilled in an open source database called PostgreSQL. In a job posting, Salesforce says it needs five engineers now, and 40 to 50 more people next year, for “a huge PostgreSQL project” that would involve “implementing core technology that runs Salesforce.com.”
The recruiter listed on the job posting referred questions about the huge project to Salesforce’s communications department.
“We’re always evaluating/exploring different technologies,” Andrew Schmitt, a Salesforce spokesman, said in an e-mail. “We have a broad strategy when it comes to data persistence, which includes not only Oracle, but also Postgres, HBase, homegrown file storage, etc.”
He also noted that Heroku, a company bought by Salesforce that enables people to build software applications in the cloud, also uses databases at Amazon Web Services and offers access to Postgres.
Heroku uses cloud technologies that became popular long after Salesforce was established. That is why Salesforce bought Heroku for $212 million last year. Heroku operates separately from Salesforce’s technology. If Salesforce builds a Postgres database that integrates their two services, Salesforce could have a bigger presence in constructing and modifying applications running on its servers.
Much as Salesforce might like to move off Oracle altogether, for cost as much as bragging rights, completely junking Oracle is probably not an option anytime soon. It is not clear that Postgres could operate at anything like the scale of Salesforce. Even if it could, Salesforce would have to spend a lot of time assuring customers that their data would not be affected. Given the marketing zeal of Salesforce, in fact, it would probably make a case that life was becoming even more fabulous.