Oracle can't foretell the future

But doing OK in the present

By Linda Harrison • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 16th March 2001 00:04 GMT

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Oracle today said it hit lowered forcasts for the third quarter, with profits up 16 per cent.

The US database monster reported $583 million net income, or ten cents per share, for the three months ended February 28 2001.

Sales grew to $2.7 billion, from $2.5 billion for the same period the previous year. Application software sales rose 25 per cent to $249 million, database software sales grew six per cent to $823 million, and service revenue was up 12 per cent to $1.5 billion.

"The US economic downturn over the past several months clearly affected our revenue and profit growth more than we anticipated, due to a sharp downturn in completed transactions in the last few days of the quarter, and the current economic uncertainty continues to limit our visibility going forward," said Oracle CFO Jeffrey O Henley.

On March 1 Oracle issued a profit warning - its first in three years. It blamed the US economy and cuts in IT corporate spending.

But today Henley said Oracle was equipped to "weather the current economic storm".

"Looking ahead, we plan to tightly adhere to the e-business cost reduction plan already in place, which hopefully will allow us to maintain our improvements in productivity and efficiency despite a difficult environment," he added. ®