I would not be surprised to see Salesforce (CRM) and Oracle (ORCL) combine in 2023 or 2024.

A Salesforce, Oracle deal used to be rumored back around the time of CRM’s 2004 IPO which raised $110 million. At that time Oracle Co-Founder & CEO Larry Ellison was pushing hard on building ORCL’s Application layer (largely by way of M&A), to complement Oracle’s Database/infrastructure business. Oracle has continued to acquire Application companies over the years including a number of deals in the Marketing Automation/Analytics space.

Why would such a deal make sense?

• Oracle remains a laggard on the Cloud database/infrastructure side behind AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Larry Ellison will want to force an outcome while he’s alive and well.
• With respect to Salesforce, if this current reorganization does not go as planned I could see CRM founder Marc Benioff throw in the towel, especially if CRM shares remain range bound over the next year or so.
• A combined Oracle/Salesforce would likely see Ellison as Chairman, Benioff as CEO and Safra Catz as COO with Catz eventually becoming CEO, Benioff Chairman and Ellison Chairman Emeritus.

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