Oracle says new software licence sales grew by 32 per cent during its latest financial period, twice the growth that the software giant had expected.

Database sales during the fourth quarter grew by 18 per cent, while applications revenue was up 83 per cent as a result of the firm’s major acquisitions during the past year. Even excluding sales from the two biggest purchases, Siebel and Retek, licence revenue increased 56 per cent.

Oracle has been pursuing an aggressive policy of acquisitions over the past two years, absorbing PeopleSoft and JD Edwards as well as smaller, specialist vendors, with the aim of overhauling business software market leader SAP. The firm has spent $20bn on this shopping spree.

‘The fourth quarter is more important than ever for Oracle this year. The company has risen to the challenge,’ said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum.

‘Over the past year, Oracle has seen some challenges in both database and applications licence sales. The database challenge came from lower-priced products, especially Microsoft SQL Server, while the applications challenge came from SAP. By turning in good growth figures in both domains, it shows it is fighting back strongly.’

Oracle plans to integrate all of its disparate software products under a single banner, Fusion, but SAP has been trying to take advantage of any potential uncertainty or doubt among existing Oracle customers.

Further reading:

Oracle to update applications