Oracle Licensed to Thrill

Updated from Sept. 19

Shares of Oracle(ORCL) shot to a five-year high after the database giant beat Wall Street's EPS expectations by 2 cents and grew its top line by 30%, its best fiscal first quarter in four years.

In early Wednesday trading, the stockrose more than 12% to $18.14, the first time the issue has been that high since July 2001.

Oracle said late Tuesday that its profit grew to $670 million, or 13 cents a share, from $519 million, or 10 cents a share, a year ago. Total revenue was $3.59 billion vs. $2.77 billion a year earlier.

Excluding the cost of stock-based compensation and other items, the company earned a profit of 18 cents a share.

Analysts polled by Thomson First Call were looking for a profit of 16 cents a share on sales of $3.47 billion.

The best news in the earnings report was the company's strong sales of software licenses for both its core database business and its applications business. Total sales of software licenses were up 29% to $2.7 billion, while the combined database and middleware business grew 15% to $576 million in new license sales.

The applications business, which Oracle has spent more than $13 billion to build via acquisitions in the last few years, grew 80% to $228 million in new license revenue. Analysts were expecting license sales of $213 million.

"We're rapidly taking applications market share from SAP(SAP)," said Oracle President Charles Phillips in a press release.