Wall Street Beat: Software vendor results offer glimpses of optimism

September 21, 2013

Enterprise tech companies including Oracle this week started reporting financial results that cover at least part of the third calendar quarter, and so far, the trends look mildly promising compared to last quarter. For its fiscal quarter ending Aug. 31, Oracle reported revenue of $8.4 billion, up 2 percent year over year, and net income of $2.2 billion, up 8 percent. Sales of new software licenses and “engineered systems,” preconfigured hardware and software bundles like the company’s Exadata offering, helped boost results. One big question for Oracle is whether its cloud-based software will compete successfully against similar offerings from younger rivals such as Workday and Salesforce.com. Another issue is whether Oracle’s move into hardware, essentially a bet it made when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, will pan out or continue to be a drag on profit. Overall hardware system revenue decreased 7 percent to $1.23 billion in the quarter, Oracle said. However, engineered systems did well, officials said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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