Oracle VP Sees No Turnaround in N.America
Wednesday August 8 4:07 PM ET
BOSTON (Reuters) - Oracle Corp.'s (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) vice president of sales in North America on Wednesday said he saw no sign of a turnaround among customers, who remain bent on conserving cash rather than making investments.
``We believe we have kind of hit the bottom,'' George Roberts, an Oracle executive vice president, said at a U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray technology conference in Boston.
``We think we have our feet on solid ground. But the marketplace isn't turning. Customers are not freeing up their capital. They are very focused on capital preservation.''
The world's No. 2 software maker faces a tough sell as corporations only spend money on their top projects.
Roberts dismissed a recent story in the Wall Street Journal that suggested Oracle's 11i software product, a suite of applications to manage corporate operations, has not gained traction among large corporations.
When asked if 11i sales were on track, Roberts replied, ''We're very comfortable with the interest we are seeing from customers. It's coming along very nicely and we're very pleased with where we are at''.
Roberts said 11i has 572 live customers and another 3,500 customers are implementing the do-it-all software product, which handles human resource functions, sales, supply chain management and customer relations management. |
