Oracle Posts Huge Quarter

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle's(ORCL Quote - Cramer on ORCL - Stock Picks) fourth-quarter revenue leapfrogged past the Street's estimates Wednesday and boosted its earnings by 27%.

The Redwood Shores, Calif. business software giant said revenue grew 25% to $7.28 billion, from $5.88 billion in the same quarter of last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected revenue of $6.86 billion.

The bottom line rose to $2.04 billion, or 39 cents a share, from $1.6 billion, or 31 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding special items, EPS was 47 cents. Analysts were looking for 44 cents a share.

Shares were up 27 cents, or 1.2%, to $22.50 in after-hours trading.

Operating margin was 41%, vs. 39% during the same quarter of 2007.

Oracle, the dominant supplier of database software, is challenging IBM's(IBM Quote - Cramer on IBM - Stock Picks) lead in middleware and SAP's(SAP Quote - Cramer on SAP - Stock Picks) dominance in application software.