Profits at database giant Oracle fell in the third quarter to $540m compared to net income of $635m in the same period of last year. Post-acquisition costs related to Peoplesoft are blamed for the fall
Turnover for the three months ended 28 February was up to $2.95bn from $2.51bn. But Oracle shares fell slightly because Wall Street was expecting sales of over $3bn.
Safra Catz, Oracle co-president and acting CFO,was pleased with progress in the quarter which she described as a transitional period. She expects the PeopleSoft buy to cost about $611m and take six months to complete the integration, according to Reuters. Catz told analysts that future acquisitions were likely to be small, like Retek, rather than on the scale of PeopleSoft.
But analyst Tad Piper of Piper Jaffray told the newswire that Oracle's application business would have declined by about 14 per cent without the filip provided by PeopleSoft.
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