Still, Oracle’s profit edged past Wall Street’s estimates and its revenue from new software licenses ratcheted higher for the second quarter in a row. That is an encouraging sign that big companies are steadily increasing their spending on new technology projects.<\/p>\n
New customers are key for Oracle, the world’s No. 1 maker of database software, because they often lock into technical-support contracts that fuel Oracle’s growth for years down the road. Oracle gets more than half its total revenue from those contracts.<\/p>\n
Oracle said after the market closed Thursday that its net income was $1.2 billion, or 23 cents per share, in the three months ended Feb. 28. That compares with $1.3 billion, or 26 cents per share, in the year-ago period.<\/p>\n
Revenue jumped 17 percent to $6.4 billion.<\/p>\n
Excluding items, the company earned 38 cents per share. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected Oracle to earn 37 cents per share, on $6.3 billion in revenue.<\/p>\n
The latest numbers include about a month of contributions from Sun Microsystems, the struggling server and software maker that Oracle bought for $7.4 billion. The deal was completed in January after months of wrangling in Europe over whether the deal would violate antitrust laws.<\/p>\n
Oracle’s revenue from new software licenses rose 10 percent, excluding Sun. The company had predicted it would rise as much as 9 percent. The September-November quarter, which Oracle reported in<\/p>\n
December, marked the first time in a year that figure had risen. Before the earnings report, Oracle shares rose 28 cents, 1.1 percent, to close at $26.04. The stock lost 34 cents, 1.3 percent, to $25.70 in after-hours trading.<\/p>\n