Oracle Corp was boasting about the strength of its core database business on Thursday, which it said grew by 25% in the first quarter. Proof, according to president and chief operating officer Ray Lane, that the database market is far from mature. But revenues from the company’s strategically important applications business remained disappointingly flat. Oracle’s first quarter figures showed net profits of $195m up from profits of $150m last time (before acquisition charges) while total revenues grew by 28% to $1.75bn. It was a good quarter for us, we were pleased, said Jeff Henley, chief financial officer, the story here continues to be the database recovery and strength. Including tools and related services, database revenues grew 25% to $1.3bn in the quarter. Henley made reference to the troubles of December last year, when Oracle missed its second quarter numbers and pundits began to forecast the end of the database boom. Shares in the world’s second biggest software company crashed by a third in a single day. Henley said he hoped these latest figures had dispelled the belief that the database business is mature. His sentiments were echoed by Ray Lane who commented that all of Oracle’s efforts to realign its sales and management structure had now started to pay off. But while the core business goes on as before, applications revenues remained flat, despite which, Lane said he would be disappointed if the full year produced growth of less than 30% from this division. Including services, however, applications related business grew by 37% to $0.5bn. Lane also reserved some strong words for his company’s chief rival in the applications market, SAP AG. He talked candidly about the tactics his sales teams were encountering, claiming that SAP is being forced into compromising its sales pitches by hastily dropping the price and adding guarantees on delivery times to sweeten deals. This is after they get off being really arrogant by saying ‘I can’t believe you’re not going with SAP’, said Lane. He went on to predict that SAP was going to go through hell in the next 12 months as it struggled to deliver on its guarantees. Lane said he was trained never to use the G word and that Oracle would not be sucked into playing this game. He also predicted that Oracle’s sales teams would benefit from the current uncertainties within US equity markets. Oracle sees many of its sales employees defect to internet start ups. But as these begin to look a little riskier, the staff attrition rate would slow, he said. As for the recent rumors that he himself was about to jump ship and join Electronic Data Systems Corp, Lane said even his own mother had called him about the news. The only person that hasn’t called me is anyone from EDS, he said. รก
