The economy may be sputtering, but Oracle Corp. is still hitting on all cylinders. Brushing aside worries about a possible slowdown in the technology sector, Oracle soared well beyond analyst expectations in its fiscal second quarter and raised hopes for a strong start in 2008 with an upbeat forecast.
The results released late Wednesday drove up Oracle’s stock price by more than 6 percent.
Now the big question is whether Oracle’s performance and bullish outlook should be interpreted as a positive sign for the entire technology industry.
Some analysts aren’t ready to leap to the conclusion, reasoning that Oracle is simply outsmarting and out-hustling its competition. “It would be inappropriate to think that just because Oracle is doing well, the rest of the industry is too,” said Cowen and Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher.
Because Oracle’s latest quarter ended in November, its results came out about a month before most other tech bellwethers.
The Redwood Shores-based company earned $1.3 billion, or 25 cents per share, for the three months ended Nov. 30, a 35 percent increase from net income of $967 million, or 18 cents per share, at the same time last year.
If not for stock option expenses and the costs incurred in recent acquisitions, Oracle said it would have earned 31 cents per share — 4 cents greater than the average estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Revenue totaled $5.31 billion, a 28 percent improvement from $4.16 billion last year. Analysts, on average, had projected revenue of $5.04 billion.
“It was a very strong quarter, based on just about every metric you can think of,” said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.
In a telling indication of the company’s growth, Oracle’s sales of software licenses climbed by 38 percent to $1.67 billion. Analysts had predicted gains in the 20 percent range.
Software sales are closely watched because new…