By Wylie Wong, CNET News.com
Wednesday, December 15 1999 05:30 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/0,39042972,13023037,00.htm

Oracle steamrolled past Wall Street estimates today as strong software sales propelled the database giant to a second-quarter profit of $384 million.

Oracle earned $384 million, or 26 cents per share, compared to last year's second-quarter profit of $274 million, or 19 cents per share. First Call, a consensus of analysts, had predicted the company would earn 22 cents per share.

For the second quarter that ended on Nov. 30, revenue grew from $2.1 billion in 1998 to $2.3 billion this year.

Company executives said total software license revenue grew 18 percent during the past year. Database software sales grew 17 percent to $651 million, while application software revenue skyrocketed 31 percent to $168 million. Oracle earned $1.4 billion in services revenue, a 10 percent increase from the same quarter last year.