Oracle net income up 11 % YoY at $2.03 bn

Several brokerages upped their stock price targets for Oracle Corp, on projections of  the company seeing higher  growth from its cloud computing services and newer database software products, making up declines in hardware sales.

First-quarter net income was up 11 per cent to $2.03 billion, or 41 cents a share, from $1.84 billion, or 36 cents, a year earlier. According to the largest maker of database software, hardware-systems products revenue fell 24 per cent to $779 million.

The No 3 software maker in the world is trying hard to turn around its Sun computer division on tight technology budgets and on Thursday said hardware sales were down 24 per cent from a year ago.

According to chief executive Larry Ellison, who was in a conference call, the company would announce an upgraded version of its 12c database software product on 30 September.

According to the company's projections the new software sales and subscription revenue would range from 5 per cent to 15 per cent this quarter.

The company is also gaining from the cloud-based service providers it acquired recently namely, Taleo and RightNow, which spun cloud revenue worth $222 million in the first quarter.