Oracle Delivers on Earnings But Questions Linger
92694
While some slowdown in application sales was expected as customers took a wait-and-see approach to the Oracle-PeopleSoft antitrust proceedings, Oracle&#39;s application sales plunged 69 percent from the fourth quarter to the first.
740605
Earnings expectations were trounced, but projections don't measure up.
488488
Slams SAP's 'downmarket' strategy Database software giant Oracle said its first quarter profit rose by 25 per cent, with revenue and earnings per share beating Wall Street expectations for the firm.â¦
56351
And slaps $1.3bn on Q2 bottom line Database giant Oracle said yesterday that it saw earnings jump by 35 per cent in its second quarter buoyed by strong sales of software licenses.â¦
335792
Oracle Corp. on Tuesday reported a 16 percent rise in quarterly net income as the world's second largest software company benefited from steady demand for its flagship database software.
100899
SAN FRANCISCO - Business software maker Oracle Corp.'s quarterly earnings exceeded analyst expectations, despite sluggish sales in a product line that the company hopes to bolster by completing a long-sought takeover of rival PeopleSoft Inc.    The Redwood Shores-based company said Tuesday it earned $509 million, or 10 cents per share, during the three months ended in August, a 16 percent improvement from $440 million, or 8 cents per share, at the same time last year...
710953
The software maker is moving along -- but not enough to get investors excited.
424073
Analysts were expecting Oracle earnings of 9 cents per share with revenue of $2.23 billion, according to Thomson First Call. New software license revenue came in at $563 billion, meeting
400231
Oracle just closed out another impressive quarter, and it may just be getting warmed up.
473147
BUSINESS software maker Oracle&#39;s quarterly earnings just exceeded analyst expectations, overcoming sluggish sales in applications the company hopes to remedy through its takeover bid for rival PeopleSoft.
359926
Stocks resumed the weekâs rally as Wall Street drew confidence from strong earnings from Oracle.
528431
By Akweli Parker, The Philadelphia Inquirer  Sep. 21--As shares of Oracle Corp. paced gains on Wall Street yesterday  after a glowing earnings report late Tuesday, rival SAP AG scrambled to douse  incendiary remarks made at its expense by Oracle officials.
215857
Melding a hodgepodge of different software makers into a cohesive business is supposed to be difficult. But Oracle Corp. is making the task look easy as the Redwood Shores-based company churns out one impressive quarter after another, nearly three years into a $25-billion shopping spree that is yielding bigger dividends than many skeptical software analysts and executives anticipated.
280160
(InfoWorld) - Oracle Corp. declared another strong quarter of financial results, exceeding both its own expectations and analysts' predictions, in what the database, applications and middleware software vendor has typically defined as a tough time period. In results for Oracle's first quarter of fiscal 2007 issued Tuesday for the period ended Aug. 31, the company saw its net income climb 29 percent over the year-ago quarter to US$670 million on revenue up 30 percent to $3.6 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) grew 28 percent to $0.13. Discounting the impact of recent acquisitions and other factors, Oracle's net income rose 26 percent to $931 million compared with the first quarter of fiscal 2006, while revenue was also up 26 percent to $3.7 billion, and EPS grew 24 percent to $0.18. A consensus estimate of Thomson Financial analysts had predicted that Oracle would report revenue of $3.5 billion on an EPS of $0.16. The figures were better than what Safra Catz, co-president and chief financial officer at Oracle, estimated back in June when the company issued its fourth-quarter results for fiscal 2006. She predicted then that total fiscal 2007 first-quarter revenue would rise 19 percent to 20 percent on an EPS of $0.16, without accounting for any specific charges likely to be taken in the quarter. "We exceeded our guidance on every metric and delivered strong revenue growth across all product lines and geographies," Catz said in an Oracle release. In the first quarter of fiscal 2007, Oracle gained $2.7 billion of its revenue from software sales, with new software licenses accounting for 22 percent of revenue or $804 million, while software license update and product support contributed 54 percent or $1.9 billion to Oracle's bottom line. Services made up the remaining $846 million or 24 percent of revenue. Revenue from new applications shot up by 80 percent compared to the same quarter last year, with new database and middleware license revenue growing by a more modest 15 percent, while service revenue rose by 33 percent. Â
269158
Shares finished higher Thursday as investors set aside concerns about downbeat economic reports and focused on Oracleâs strong profits statement.
457189
Stocks opened higher as investors grew encouraged following Oracleâs strong earnings, despite Bear Stearns  first-ever quarterly loss.
333721
(InfoWorld) - Despite financial and accounting problems at Dell Inc., Novell Inc. and Yahoo Inc., underlying faith in the software sector and a solid first-day performance on Riverbed Technology Inc.'s initial public offering indicate that the end of the year may yet reward IT investors. The early part of the third quarter proved worrisome for technology investors, as high hopes in the beginning of the year gave way to softer than expected sales and a price war for PC makers. But as the fourth quarter approaches, several brokerages have raised their forecasts for the tech sector as a whole. The lower cost of hardware is expected to spark a spending spree by both consumers and corporate buyers by the end of the year. Analysts also see pent-up demand for software. Signs of hope started appearing in August, when for example Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. released a survey showing that 60 percent of chief information officers polled anticipated increasing software spending in the second half of the year. In addition, Lehman Brothers Inc. and Credit Suisse First Boston have recently recommended that investors take a closer look and invest in technology stocks, reasoning that declines earlier in the year have made some companies a bargain. Stoked by recommendations, the Nasdaq exchange started taking off in August after sinking to a yearly low in July. Good news continued this week, as the debut of Riverbed, a maker of WAN (wide area network) optimization technology, shone on the Nasdaq. Riverbed's (RVBD) initial public offering of 8.7 million shares priced at US$9.75 a share, above the target of $7 to $8.50 a share, and closed at $15.30 Thursday, showing confidence in the network optimization trend. On TuesdayÂ Oracle Corp. reported better-than-expected earnings. Excluding one-time charges for acquisitions, Oracle's earnings per share grew 24 percent to $0.18, better than the $0.16 consensus forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Several analysts said that Oracle's results, after a similar strong report from Adobe Systems Inc. last week, bode well for the upcoming quarter. Specifically, Oracle's strong sales for new applications and services indicate that businesses are in the mood to buy. Citigroup upgraded Oracle to "buy" from "hold," and UBS Warburg and Deutsche Bank raised their price targets. Some bad news midweek put at least a temporary halt to the Nasdaq rise. Yahoo (YHOO) shares plunged $3.25, to close at $25.75 Tuesday after it warned that slowing growth from automotive and financial services advertisers would affect revenue. The warning pushed down sales of other Internet companies as well. News that both Dell andÂ Novell face delisting from the Nasdaq also helped depress the market Thursday. Due to accounting probes, both companies delayed financial reports, which triggered delisting notices. Hewlett-Packard Co. shares, which up until this week seemed impervious to the company's growing spy scandal, finally took a hit Thursday after revelations that Chief Executive Office Mark Hurd may have known about possible illegal investigative techniques as they were being planned. HP shares (HPQ) closed at $34.87, down by $1.91 Thursday. On balance, the bad news seems company-specific, while the solid software results and the excitement sparked by Riverbed appears to speak more to underlying trends. For the hoped-for fourth quarter tech rally to really happen though, investors need to see some strong quarterly reports next month. Â