Oracle's profit rose 35% in 2d quarter

Oracle Corp., a maker of database software, said yesterday that its second-quarter profit rose 35 percent, bolstered by orders for new programs and revenue from customer-support contracts.

Net income increased to $1.3 billion, or 25 cents a share, from $967 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier, Oracle, of Redwood City, Calif., said in a statement. Revenue rose 28 percent to $5.31 billion in the period ended Nov. 30.

Sales have advanced more than 20 percent for seven straight quarters after Oracle spent $25 billion buying competitors and companies in new markets over almost three years. Oracle, which competes with SAP AG and International Business Machines Corp., boosted earnings through customer-support sales, its most profitable business. SAP has its U.S. headquarters in Newtown Square.

Excluding stock-based-compensation costs, profit was 31 cents a share, compared with analysts' estimate of 27 cents.

Oracle gained $1.30, or 6.26 percent, to $22.06 at one point in extended trading. Shares fell 49 cents to $20.76 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has gained 21 percent this year.

Oracle sells database products, so-called middleware software that helps different types of programs share information, and business-management applications for handling such tasks as accounting, merchandising and logistics.