An oracle, according to one online dictionary, is a statement given by a highly regarded person that can be ambiguous or obscure.
By that measure Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison issued a few oracles on Thursday.
During a conference call with financial analysts after releasing the company’s latest results, Ellison briefly mentioned an upcoming version of its database that will more directly challenge SAP’s HANA in-memory platform.
As Computerworld U.S. reports, Ellison was talking about Oracle 12.1c. Meanwhile, version 12c has yet to be released. Oracle’s in-memory Exalytics In-Memory Machine and its Exadata series appliances have been the company’s weapons against HANA.
He gave no indication when 12.1c will be released.
In addition, Ellison also said the company will make some “startling” announcements next week.
As Siliconvalley.com reported later, despite these leaks and fourth quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, Oracle shares dropped about nine per cent in after-hours trading, on top of a three per cent drop that came before the earnings announcement.
(Larry Ellison. File photo from Shutterstock)
Oracle’s [Nasdaq: ORCL] numbers were “respectable” one financial analyst said, but not new licence sales. New software licenses and cloud software subscriptions revenues were up one per cent to US$4.0 billion.
Its fourth quarter total revenue was US$3.8 billion, the same as it was for the period a year ago. Profit was up 10 per cent. For the fiscal year, revenues were also the same as 2012 at US$37.2 billion, while profit for year was up nine per cent to US$10.9 billion.
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“Oracle’s HCM Cloud, CRM Cloud and ERP Cloud grew 50 per cent as we added over 500 new SaaS customers in Q4 alone,” Oracle president Mark Hurd said in a statement. “Our annualized SaaS revenue run rate is over $1 billion, making us a strong No. 2 in cloud applications – we are larger than SAP and Workday combined. Furthermore, in Q4 our HCM cloud alone generated more SaaS revenue and added more new Fusion HCM customers than Workday added HCM and ERP customers combined in their most recent quarter.”
Read the ComputerWorld and SiliconValley.com stories here
