"We've been in the on-demand business almost for a decade. Q4 was the first quarter we actually made money in the on-demand business," Ellison said. "The entire industry has to get better at making money selling on-demand. If you look at Salesforce, they don't make a lot of money. That's what we're focused on before we scale the business." (Salesforce posted net income of $9.55 million on $247.6 million in revenue for the quarter ended April 30.)
Overall, though, Wall Street is increasingly viewing Oracle as a bellwether for the tech space overall, and even the larger economy.
Oracle is making pushes into new verticals as part of its growth strategy. This week it announced the acquisition of Skywire Software, maker of software for the insurance industry. That move followed its recent announcement that it planned to buy AdminServer, another insurance software maker.
Also this week, Oracle said it is forming a new health and sciences business unit.
Meanwhile, the company recently pushed through a series of hefty price increases on its products.
For example, a CPU license for its database is now US$47,500, up from $40,000. Oracle also appears to have raised prices for software it gained through its recent acquisition of BEA.
List prices aren't necessarily what customers pay for software products, as the cost often gets lowered dramatically through negotiations, but now the baseline for talks is now higher, said Ray Wang [cq], an analyst with Forrester Research, in a previous interview.
In a blog post , Wang said the weak dollar is "the main rationale" behind Oracle's move, as the company maintains a single worldwide price list.
"Unlike many vendors who account for global currency fluctuations with country, region, and industry specific uplifts, Oracle maintains consistent pricing in dollars," he wrote. "The dramatic devaluation of the dollar has led to a de-facto discount in the 30 to 35 percent range for multi-nationals who purchase in pounds sterling, euros, and to a lesser extent, yen.
"As a result, price increases mainly impact the US while other Euro-zone countries will not see a major increase in real-dollar terms," he added.
Oracle executives did not refer to the price hikes during their remarks on Wednesday. A company spokeswoman previously declined comment.
A consultant who advises and represents Oracle customers during their negotiations with the company said the ongoing changes at Oracle have created a murky climate for buyers.
"What we're telling clients right now is that it's a very difficult time to buy Oracle licensing," said Eliot Colon, president of Miro Consulting. "There are so many major issues occurring all at the same time."
Many Oracle managers are still in planning sessions surrounding matters such as the BEA integration, and new sales strategies, he said.
Clients who received quotes based on the old price list have until the end of August to act on them, according to Colon. But if Oracle's sales organization faces a crush of last-minute approvals in the last weeks before the deadline, smaller-volume deals may fall by the wayside, he said.
"An approval is usually a layup, it's easy -- but not when you've got thousands of them at the same time," he said.
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive InfoWorld Resource Alerts
5 Recommendations
