SAN FRANCISCO -- Though there has been a love-hate relationship between Salesforce.com and Oracle (and their supreme leaders) for years now, respective CEOs Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison took things to a whole new level this summer.
Becoming a staple guest at TechCrunch Disrupt over the years, Benioff further promoted (and joked about) the revived Salesforce-Oracle alliance in a fireside chat with former TechCrunch chief Michael Arrington on Tuesday morning.
The potshots commenced as soon as the two Silicon Valley celebrities took their seats on the stage at the Concourse Exhibition Center, with Arrington quipping that he would have expected Benioff to have already steered the conversation in his own direction by that point.
Arrington seemed most interested in finding out how Benioff feels now about his long-time rival Ellison.
"You don't call them a loser anymore?," asked Arrington.
"I did see the races this weekend," Benioff replied without missing a beat, reflecting Oracle Team USA's loss to Emirates Team New Zealand in three America's Cup races on Sunday.
Regardless, Benioff seemed keen on maintaining diplomacy between his cloud-based software corporation and the hardware/software giant down in Redwood Shores.
"He is my mentor," Benioff admitted about Ellison. "He was our first investor and first board member. There is no one I've learned more from than Larry Ellison."
That response didn't seem good enough for Arrington, who obviously wanted to stir the pot more by asking if all of Benioff's "quotes about him from the past" still ring true, asking sarcastically, "so those are all lies?"
Benioff did steer the conversation in his direction in the sense that he avoided anymore swipes at Oracle and Ellison, responding that "there are different ways to build all of these services."
However, when asked if he had to do it all over again and rebuild Salesforce.com from scratch, Benioff said "we might use Oracle," simply adding later he does think some of Oracle's products are "outstanding."
Here are a few more nuggets from Benioff's banter with Arrington:
Screenshot via UStream/TechCrunch