Software giant Oracle is believed to be the frontrunner in the bidding war for short-form video app TikTok. Microsoft dropped out of negotiations with Chinese-company Bytedance on Sunday night, after which Reuters reported that Oracle would become its technology partner and assume management of TikTok's US user data. The partnership should address US security concerns but not be a complete sale, sources told the agency. However, Chinese state media has said Bytedance will not sell its US operations outright, nor will it share TikTok's source code. Oracle's security roots Oracle sells database technology and cloud systems to businesses. It was one of the first companies to help clients structure their records in this way. Co-founder and current chairman Larry Ellison named the company after the codename given to a project for its first customer, in 1975: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The firm was founded two years later and went on to complete contracts for the CIA, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and the National Security Agency. News site Gizmodo has detailed Oracle's involvement with US government intelligence community, and says it is relationship that has been "frequently ignored by people who like to pretend Oracle was just another humble Silicon Valley start-up". But its clients and cloud-based services now extend far wider, from serving auto-makers including Mazda and Yamaha to retailers such as the UK's Co-op and Debenhams chains. Oracle's technologies can be used to keep track of everything, Mr Ellison has said. "The information about your banks, your checking balance, your savings balance, is stored in an Oracle database," he said in Jeffery Rosen's 2004 book The Naked Crowd. "Your airline reservation is stored in an Oracle database. What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database. Your profile on Yahoo! is stored in an Oracle database… Privacy is already gone."