Sep. 19, 2006

After the close of markets today, B2B software maker Oracle had an increase in quarterly profit, helped by sales of new licenses for business applications that drove its revenue higher.

Net income for the fiscal first quarter rose to $670 million, or 13 cents per share, up from $519 million, or 10 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $3.59 billion from $2.77 billion.

According to Thomson First Call, excluding items, the company said it posted a per-share profit of 18 cents. Analysts on average were expecting the world's biggest database software maker to post a per-share profit of 16 cents on revenue of $3.5 billion.

The results come as investors are beginning to embrace the company's decision to spend some $20 billion over the past three years to push into the market for business applications as its core database software market matures.

Shares of Oracle were up 5 percent in after-hours trading.

Oracle shares have gained about 18 percent since June 15 when it first told investors of stronger-than-expected software license revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter.

At the same time shares in its major rival, Germany's SAP AG have fallen about 5 percent.

Source: CNN fn