Oracle Lights It Up

"The applications number is huge," says Daniel Morgan, a fund manager at Synovus Investment Advisors. "It's a very good sign that the deals [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison has been putting together are paying off."

Sales of new middleware licenses grew by a robust 82%. Ellison crowed about the company's progress in that sphere. "Our middleware business is now larger than BEA Systems'(BEAS). It took us five years to catch and pass them," he said.

BEA, one of the top three middleware vendors, grew similar sales by 8% in its fourth quarter to $168.7 million. (Oracle does not disclose actual sales figures for middleware but instead groups it with database sales.)

With the third-quarter trophy now hanging on Ellison's wall, Oracle is setting its sights on the seasonally strong fourth quarter. Since last year's quarter was very strong, Oracle's executives took a cautious tone as they announced guidance on a conference call. "It was a blockbuster," said CFO Safra Catz.

In the fourth quarter last year, Oracle posted a non-GAAP profit of 29 cents a share on total revenue of $4.9 billion.

Catz said the company expects to post a profit of 30 cents a share and a profit excluding items of 34 cents a share, which equals Wall Street's expectations. Revenue will range from $5.39 billion to $5.59 billion, or a growth rate of 10% to 14%, down from growth of 25% the year before.

With a midpoint of about $5.49 billion, the company's estimate is just below Wall Street's consensus of $5.53 billion.

New software license revenue, Catz said, will grow by 5% to 15%, which at the midpoint is equal to Wall Street's expectations of about 10%.

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