Oracle Says Cloud Now a Billion Dollar Business

http://channelnomics.com/2012/12/19/oracle-cloud-billion-dollar-business/

Oracle Says Cloud Now a Billion Dollar Business

December 19th, 2012 | Author:

Editor’s note:As part of our special editorial partnership, Channelnomics is publishing this recent article from CRN in the UK.

Oracle Corp. revealed that its cloud business is closing in on the $1 billion revenue mark as it unveiled a barnstorming set of fiscal second quarter results.

The software maker topped Wall Street expectations by announcing a 3 per year-on-year rise in sales to $9.1 billion for the three months to Nov. 30, despite currency headwinds.

GAAP net profit jumped by 18 percent to $2.6 billion, while sales of new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions rocketed by 17 percent to $2.4 billion.

Oracle president Mark Hurd said that applications, middleware and database all enjoyed double-digit growth in new software license and cloud subscriptions, with applications heading the field with growth topping 30 percent.

He also boasted that Oracle’s cloud offering of HCM, CRM and ERP applications – plus its Oracle database and Java platform services – are the “strongest in the industry”.

“Already approaching a one billion dollar run rate, our cloud business will become much bigger over time.”

Software license updates and product support revenues rose seven per cent to $4.3 billion.

Oracle’s slide down the server rankings since it acquired Sun Microsystems has been well documented and hardware systems products revenues fell by 23 percent to $734 million in Q2 – more than the eight to 18 percent forecast.

However, Oracle chief executive Larry Elison claimed that Sun had been one of the firm’s “most strategic and profitable acquisitions we have ever made”, hinting that its hardware business would soon return to growth.

“I believe that products like Exadata and the SPARC SuperCluster will not only continue to drive improved profitability in our hardware business, by the end of this fiscal year, they will also drive growth in our hardware business,” he said.