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Oracle's feeling pretty SaaS-tisfied with itself

Profit of $1.8bn almost enough to cover Larry's OpenWorld entertainment budget

Oracle has seen its revenues return to growth as the enterprise computing giant continues its migration away from on-premises systems.

The database kingpin once again talked up the growth in its SaaS and PaaS businesses, while hardware and on-premises software continued to decline. This as Oracle is just days away from its biggest event of the year.

For Q1 FY2017, Big Red reported the following:

  • Revenues of $8.6bn were up two per cent over the year-ago quarter.
  • Net income of $1.8bn was up five per cent on the year-ago quarter and comes as welcome news on the heels of a 2016 fiscal year that saw profits down by 10 per cent.
  • Revenues of $798m from SaaS and PaaS services were up 77 per cent on the quarter, while cloud as a whole logged $969m in revenues.
  • On-premises software continued to be Oracle's big earner with $5.8bn in revenues, flat on the year-ago quarter. New software licenses were down 11 per cent.
  • Hardware revenues of $996m were down 12 per cent on the quarter, with hardware product revenues falling by 19 per cent and support revenues by 4 per cent.
  • Non-GAAP earnings per share were 55 cents, short of the 58 cents analysts had expected.

As in previous quarters, Oracle execs hammered on the growth in cloud services as helping to offset the sagging hardware sales. While still a minor part of Oracle's total revenue stream (just 11 per cent this quarter), cloud is the focal point of Oracle's future plans.

"This year we are on track to sell more than $2 billion of SaaS and PaaS annually recurring revenue," said Oracle co-CEO, Mark Hurd.

"We believe this will be the second year in a row that Oracle has sold more SaaS and PaaS than any cloud services provider."

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is likely to outline further plans for Oracle expanding its cloud line next week when he kicks off the annual Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Ellison's keynote, slated to take place Sunday evening, will open the week-long show. ®

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