Oracle Shares Poised to Peak

A recent article in Baseline notes that British Telecom this month rolled out Oracle's Siebel customer relationship management software, a system for 16,000 users and up to 7,500 concurrent sessions.

"The question is how will they explain it to us," he said. Software companies' practice of deferring unearned revenue "makes these companies so hard to cover. But it bodes well for backlog, license revenue growth and maintenance revenue growth."

Significantly beating the performance of the company's year-ago quarter is no easy act. A year ago, Oracle reported license revenue growth of 28%, year on year.

It's that room for sell-the-news profit-taking after Tuesday's report that has some analysts sounding a cautious tone.

A.G. Edwards analyst Kevin Buttigieg wrote in a research note Monday that "fundamental and stock outperformance might be limited by the already high expectations, particularly for license revenues."

Both A.G. Edwards and WR Hambrecht make a market in Oracle stock.