Oracle posts flat revenues on slow software sales Oracle execs were quick to talk up the company's cloud efforts during its Q4 2013 earnings call on Thursday, but slow software sales disappointed investors and sent Oracle's shares tumbling in after-hours trading. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of Oracle's fiscal 2013 were flat at $10.9bn when compared to the same …
"Oracle had earlier forecast software sales growth of as much as 11 per cent, but the actual figure was just 1 per cent, bringing the total to $4bn in new software sales."
I can't help wonder if this would include software sales from Sun (and in my opinion Sun had plenty of quality software for sale besides Solaris).
Because if this would be true then for me it would be the perfect example as to how far the oracle arrogance can go.
I mean; every former Sun customer knows that the moment oracle took over prices were raised almost two folded, and even higher after that. I was lucky and had the option to bail, I know many other companies weren't that fortunate.
So I can't help wonder.. Because if my assumptions are right I wouldn't be surprised at all if we can look forward to a steadily decrease in software sales, going down as it goes and if I had anything to say about it eventually hitting rock bottom, hopefully with a bang too.
And for the record: No, I don't like oracle at all.
Oracle (larry) goes thru co-presidents like someone goes thru bottles of wine.
I doubt Safra will get canned since she really runs the company, but you really have to wonder how long Mark's tennis playing with Larry will last before he gets the boot. Been told from several sources Oracle continues to give away the hardware gear for free to customers who sign an ELA/ULA but since it is a package deal the reported earnings are zero discount.
I guess they can do this but it certainly seems fishy and really comes at the expense of software sales which is why that is artificially low at 1% while hardware is "only" down 24%
Off to Paris tomorrow...love ya'll
Why is that "modest" ? i wish i got a 10% raise...
Cost of capital. The market for capital, taken as a whole, has an "idea" of what kind of return it should get. So if a company wants to raise capital consistently by selling equity - and that is the point of the stock corporation - it has to demonstrate a return at or above that level. There are various ways to do that: increase in stock price, dividends, stock splits (when they lead to an increase in price),stock bybacks, etc. Those are all ways of returning capital to investors.
Cost of capital and expected returns vary from sector to sector and company to company, because they're based in part on estimated risk and in no small part on "behavioral" (non-rational) factors. But in IT, very broadly speaking, 10% annual growth in net profits is indeed generally considered modest in this context. Unfair and/or unrealistic? Perhaps - but the point is, when you show whatever the capital market considers "modest" returns for your firm, it punishes you by discounting your stock price. And that in turn raises your cost of capital even higher, because it means you get less for your equity and pay more for your debt.
Build good products at sensible prices and customers will come. As it is you're slowly killing yourself on a high margin consultant pay-cheque funded arrogance strategy. The only other company left from the 90s actively doing the T-Rex strategy is console-cable-Cisco.
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