Oracle Looks for Inside Track on Outsourcing

For more than three years, Oracle (ORCL Quote) has been trumpeting outsourcing applications as a way to diversify away from its core database business.

But now that the world's second-largest software maker is taking more concrete steps to develop outsourcing, analysts are expressing doubts about whether it is as lucrative as Oracle suggests. Despite all the recent hype, virtually no analyst has yet included outsourcing revenue in his financial model.

The latest step taken by Oracle to build that outsourcing business will come Tuesday when the Redwood Shores, Calif., company announces it is extending beyond applications to databases and application servers. ...