Oracle Reports 2Q Results

Oracle's revenue grew at a moderate 12.9% pace in its secondquarter, reaching $2.32 billion for the period ended Nov. 30. But profitability soared 40% to $384.5 million--the payback from Oracle's ongoing efforts to cut $1 billion from its cost structure by implementing its own Internet applications, according to company executives.

Oracle reported that total software license revenue grew 18% during the same period one year earlier. CEO Larry Ellison has says he expects software license revenue in fiscal 2000 will exceed last year's 16% growth rate. Database sales increased 17% to $651 million, while application software sales grew 31% to $168 million.

The applications category includes Oracle's customer- relationship management software, sales of which grew 300% in the quarter to $49 million. Ellison says Oracle has several big customer wins for its CRM applications within European companies that use SAP enterprise resource planning applications, although those deals have not been announced and were not included in the second-quarter results.

While the pace of software license sales picked up in the second quarter, the rate of service-related revenue was down from the first quarter's 16% growth rate. Service-related revenue increased 10% in the most recent quarter to $1.4 billion.