Branson pickle for Oracle?

Talking of self-publicists, Richard Branson will be in San Francisco this September – not for the pleasure of Larry
Ellison’s company at Oracle Openworld, but to speak at Dreamforce, Salesforce.com’s annual conference.

The appearance is something of a mystery, given Virgin Atlantic’s high-profile use of Oracle’s Siebel software for customer relationship management – so what has changed?

In the past, Oracle has always booked speakers, staff and other people travelling to Openworld on its expense with Virgin Atlantic. This year, though, that handy little deal with Virgin appears to have been dropped.

The question is, has Virgin ditched Siebel in favour of Salesforce.com? Backbytes suspects the answer will be officially revealed by Branson in the company of Salesforce’s Marc Benioff at Dreamforce.