Oracle Results Drop Amid Shift To Cloud.

Oracle’s fiscal second-quarter profit declined 12 percent to $2.2 billion, or 51 cents a share, as the company transitions from the traditional model of licensing software installed on corporate computer systems to products delivered over the Internet.
Revenue overall fell 6.3 percent to $8.99 billion from a year earlier.
Oracle reported $1.68 billion in revenue from new software licenses, a decline of 18 percent from a year earlier. Analysts watch that number for insight into how well the company can sell new products and services to first-time customers and existing clients. Revenue from software-license updates and product support fell 1.8 percent to $4.68 billion. Sales in the company’s hardware division dropped 16 percent to $1.12 billion.
While it’s a small piece of Oracle, Executive Chairman Larry Ellison has said the shift to the cloud is still in the early stages for the industry — and his company can make gains with new products against rivals such as Workday and Microsoft.

 In October, Oracle said it would begin rolling out a new service that enable users to rent computing power by the hour or month — taking direct aim at Amazon.com’s cloud-computing service that is now a multibillion-dollar business.
Revenue rose 26 percent in the cloud-based businesses in the quarter to $649 million, contributing 7 percent of total sales compared with 5 percent a year earlier.
Separately, Oracle said it appointed Renee James, outgoing president of Intel, as a director, increasing the size of the board to 13 members.

By: Bloomberg News.
Review: Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, Flagship Records. 
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