Sales and profit at Oracle Corp. ended short of estimates by analysts for its fiscal fourth quarter, as competitors such as Salesforce.com and other rivals in cloud computing lure away customers.
Profit prior to certain types of costs was 92 cents per share in the three months that ended on May 31. Revenue for the same period was $11.3 billion.
Analysts projected the profit for the quarter to be 96 cents per share on sales of $11.5 billion. The company’s forecasts for the current three-month period were in line with estimates by analysts.
Larry Ellison the CEO at Oracle is closing in on a deal to acquire Microsystems for over $5 billion, according to those familiar with the situation. Ellison is also seeking a way to jumpstart the growth of Oracle by remaking it into a cloud provider in order to win back is corporate customers through adopting programs that are delivered through the Internet.
Shares of Oracle, which is based in Redwood City, California, were lower by 5.8% on Thursday in extended trading to close at $40.05. The stock is up by 11% during 2014.
Net income during the fourth quarter was off by 4.2% to just over $3.65 billion or equal to 80 cents per share. sales of new software licenses an indicator that is closely watched for future revenue, was unchanged to close at $3.77 billion, said company officials.
Hardware systems saw its sales increase by 2.4% to end at $1.47 billion in the quarter.
For the most recent quarter, which will end in August, Safra Catz the CFO at Oracle said profit would be between 62 and 66 cents excluding some costs. Sales are forecasted to increase between 4% and 6%. Analysts were predicting profits to be 64 cents on revenue of $8.78 billion an increase of 5%.
Lower revenue was attributed by Catz to the company transition to its cloud software.
