Oracle’s Database Dominance Eroded by Rise of Cloud-First Rivals

When Shutterfly decided recently to move the database where it clusters reams of customer photos to the cloud, one name was noticeably absent from its list of potential providers: Oracle Corp.

The company had for years relied on Oracle products to manage the photo libraries of its more than 20 million active customers. But as Shutterfly progressed on the effort to switch its systems to internet-based services from Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud division, Chief Technology Officer Moudy Elbayadi recognized it also needed to shift its database to something that was easier to use.

“The amount of time and energy that ...