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

To: JakeStraw who wrote (15766)	5/16/2001 10:36:50 PM
From: Still Rolling	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

Oracle(ORCL.O)says Q4 result tricky to predict-paper 5/16/01 10:28 PM ET SYDNEY, May 17 (Reuters) - Software giant Oracle Corp's chief financial officer Jeff Henley said weak demand gave analysts reason to be cautious about its fourth quarter results, the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday. "... our results reflect the economy, and so we think in the short term we've been pessimistic for a while," Henley said in an interview broadcast on the newspaper's website. "Once we had our third quarter which ended in February which was quite a disappointment, I think we said we figured things would get worse before they get better, so that's what I think we're up against," he said. Henley said he expected to see demand head back towards normal levels towards the end of the year as the U.S. economy started to recover. The world's No.2 software group has been subjected to a round of earnings downgrades in recent months, with some analysts suggesting Oracle's fourth quarter estimates were overly aggressive and would be scaled back. "It's very difficult, as we've said since the start of the quarter to know what we'll do," said Henley when asked if predictions Oracle would revise its estimates were well founded. Demand had slowed suddenly over the last few weeks of the March quarter and had yet to rebound, he said, noting it was difficult to predict how many deals currently in the pipeline would be converted into sales. "We certainly told people, we talked about 15 cents for the quarter. We said it could be worse, it could be better - we don't know," he said. The Redwood Shores, California-based group posted third quarter earnings of US$583 million or 10 cents a share, but has cautioned the outlook for the fourth quarter, which traditionally generates around a third of its total sales, was difficult. Shares in Oracle, which have oscillated between US$13.00 and US$46.47 over the year, closed the New York session up 47 cents at US$16.40. Henley conceded Oracle may have lost some share of the database software market to rivals International Business Machings Corp (IBM.N)and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), and said the firm would make a concerted effort to step up its database software marketing.