Oracle Corp. earnings match expectations

SAN FRANCISCO — Oracle Corp.'s fiscal first-quarter earnings matched analyst expectations as the business software maker continued to digest its recent acquisition of PeopleSoft Inc. and prepared to devour another longtime nemesis, Siebel Systems Inc.

The company, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., said Thursday it earned $519 million, or 10 cents per share, for the three months ended in August. That mirrored the results posted at the same time last year when Oracle registered net income of $509 million, or 10 cents per share.

Revenue for the period totaled $2.77 billion, a 25 percent increase from $2.22 billion a year earlier.

If not for expenses stemming from its $11.1 billion takeover of PeopleSoft and the settlement of a shareholder lawsuit, Oracle would have earned 14 cents per share. That figure matched the mean estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Oracle announced its results about an hour after the stock market closed Thursday, much later than usual. Company representatives attributed the delay to administrative problems. The company's shares rose 23 cents to close at $13.52 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then dropped 60 cents, or 4.4 percent, in extended trading.

The company has promised investors that it will boost its profit by about $400 million during the fiscal year ending next May, propelled by an influx of sales from the PeopleSoft acquisition. The earnings target excludes merger expenses.

Earlier this month, Oracle struck another blockbuster deal, a $5.85 billion agreement to buy Siebel Systems, based in San Mateo, Calif. After completing that acquisition early next year, Oracle is counting on Siebel to increase its profit by an additional $100 million to $150 million annually.

With the acquisitions, Oracle hopes to mount a more formidable threat to SAP AG's market leadership in business applications software — the computer coding that automates a wide range of administrative tasks.

Some industry analysts have questioned whether Oracle is biting off more than it can chew at once, but Chief Executive Larry Ellison has scoffed at that idea. He maintains most of the hard work in the PeopleSoft deal is already done.

Measuring the progress of the PeopleSoft acquisition is difficult because the takeover is less than a year old, precluding apples-to-apples quarterly comparisons.

In a key gauge of a software maker's health, Oracle's sales of business application licenses totaled $127 million, an 84 percent increase from the same time last year.