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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bipin Prasad who wrote (15121)	12/14/2000 10:14:00 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 19079

Hello, Bipin! Hooray for Oracle!!! I'm delighted. I don't care what the analysts say! (ggg) In an economy that slows, Oracle looks great! - Mephisto Oracle Profits Beat Expectations By Lisa Baertlein PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Oracle Corp. (NasdaqNM:ORCL - news), the world's No. 2 software maker, on Thursday posted second quarter profits just ahead of the Wall Street consensus, helped by stronger-than-expected sales of its business management software. Oracle said its net income rose 62 percent to $623 million, or 11 cents per share, for its second quarter ended Nov. 30, from $384 million, or 6 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts had been calling for earnings of 10 cents per share, according to a survey by First Call/Thomson Financial. Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle said revenues rose to $2.7 billion from $2.3 billion. ``We're already off to a great start ... it looks like we're going to have a very strong Q3,'' Oracle founder and Chief Executive Larry Ellison said in a conference call with analysts. Key Business Shines Oracle's sales of business management, or application software -- closely watched by Wall Street -- rose 66 percent to $279 million, coming in ahead of expectations. Analysts had expected sales to grow between 48 percent and 58 percent. (GO! LARRY! GO!) Oracle stock, which had fallen 7/8 to $27-1/2 in regular Nasdaq trading, was $1 higher in after-hours trading. Shares remain well below a 52-week high of over $46. Wall Street has been fixed on Oracle's applications software business and sales of its 11i e-business suite, which promises companies a way to manageall their disparate operations on the Internet. Applications are seen as key to Oracle maintaining its historic growth trajectory as the market for database software matures. ``It was a good quarter not a great quarter,'' said Thomas Weisel Partners Analyst Robert Schwartz, who said anticipated a stronger showing from Oracle's core database business and noted a lack of notable customer wins for 11i. Oracle expects earnings per share in the third quarter of 12 cents per share, in line with Wall Street estimates, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Henley said in an interview. Henley told Reuters that second-quarter applications growth was strong across each geographic region and across all of the company's product areas. He also told analysts that applications revenue growth could reach 75 percentor better in the third quarter. (WOW!) "It has a chance to grow at very high rates for a few years," Henley said. Database software sales rose 19 percent to $775 million, in the lower range of Wall Street analysts' call for growth of 18 percent to 22 percent. Oracle executives -- responding to Microsoft Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) warning that a global economic slowdown would hurt its earnings -- said they had not spotted any indication their business would be affected. ``To date we have not seen any ...slowdown in demand anywhere,'' Henley said of Oracle's business. ``People really want to invest in e-business right now,'' said Henley. He also said the company is targeting that segment with its 11i suite and forthcoming 9i application server. ``People want to save their money for the right things and I think we're in the right space,'' he said. dailynews.yahoo.com