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

To: alfred felsberger who wrote (5298)	2/2/1998 8:22:00 AM
From: Roy F	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

DAVOS-Oracle sees flat Asia growth February 2, 1998 07:09 AM DAVOS, Switzerland, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Oracle Corp ORCL president and chief operating officer Raymond Lane said on Monday he expected "flat to modest" third quarter growth in Japan in dollar terms and a 10 percent decline in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan. Lane also told Reuters during the Davos gathering of world business and political leaders that he expected the software company's worldwide database business to growth by 15 to 20 percent in 1998. The company's third quarter ends February 28. REUTERS Lane said business growth in the current third quarter of fiscal 1998 in Asia, including Japan and the Pacific, was expected to be flat compared to the same quarter a year ago. Lane said business in Asia was expected to slow down because of the Asia crisis. "We had planned to grow in Asia by 40 to 50 percent this year. In Asia, there will be flat growth in the third quarter," he said. He said Asia currently accounted for 15 percent of the business. "We have already taken a hit because of Asia and that has already been factored into our share price," he said. In Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, business was forecast to grow an average 25 percent in local currency terms in the third quarter over the same period a year ago. But that would be minus 10 percent when converted to U.S. dollars. Despite the Asian slowdown, Lane said Oracle Corp had no plans to lay off staff in the region at its subsidiaries in South Korea, Australia or Japan. "In Japan, we're hiring 120 people in June," he added. In Australia, which accounts for some two percent of the company's business, Lane said sales were forecast to grow by more than 50 percent in the third quarter. In North America, Lane reiterated the company's previous forecast of a 25 percent growth in database business and a 50 percent increase in applications business in the third quarter over the same quarter a year ago. The growth in the database business will be driven mainly by the United States and Western Europe, he added. In the second quarter, Oracle reported worldwide database software sales growth of just 3 percent. That performance -- combined with huge losses reported by Oracle rivals Sybase Inc and Informix Corp -- has led many analysts to suspect that the market for high-end database is saturated. ((Elif Kaban, Reuters Davos newsroom, 41-81-413 28 56)) REUTERS