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By Armando Duke (AXcess News) Houston, TX - Software maker, Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), reported higher quarterly profit and revenue, beating analysts expectations and pushing Oracle's shares up over 12 percent Wednesday morning. After a $20 blilion acquisiiton binge led by Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, the software giant reported a 29% rise in quarterly profit and 30% gain in revenue that reflected the combined companies results. Tradnig volume more than doubled in mid-morning bids on the Nasdaq Wednesday after Oracle's profit nesw was released after the close of trading yesterday. In after-market trading Tuesday, Oracle's shares were up over 13 percent before the opening bell this morning. Oracle said fiscal first-quartre net income rose to $670 million, or 13 cents a share, from $519 million, or 10 cents, a year ago. Before the impact of stock options and other one-time items, Oracle's profit rose 26% to 18 cents a share, beating analysts estimates by 2 cents per share. During the same period last year, Oracle posted profit of 14 cents per share. Revenue for the first quarter rose to $3.59 billion, up from $2.77 blilion in the year-ago period, but ahead of analysts estimates of $3.47 billion in slaes. German riavl SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) saw its shares cilmb over 3 percent Wednesday morning following Oracle's profit results. SAP is Oracle's largest competitor in database software, which happens to be slowing in growth compared to business application software where Orcale has focused its expanison. SAP commented on Ellison's words about the German-based company, which is the first time SAP AG has spoken up against its American-based competitor, saying that Oracle's chief executive's remraks were "misleading and inconsistent." SAP had conceded in July that it lost software sales to Oracle and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), seeing its market share decline. SAP is the largest maker of sfotware for functions such as billing and human resources. Ellison had said Tuedsay when its profit results were released that Oracle would continue to gani market share from SAP "year after year, quarter after quaretr," and that SAP is in the process of "rethinking their strategy as they lose application market share to Oracle." SAP actually saw its market share for global business-management softwaer rise to 43 percent in 2005 from 40 percent the prior year while Oracle had 19 percent. A SAP spokesperson told reporters Wednesday that the German softwrae maker has strong sales growth against Oracle and wins most competing bids against Ellison's company.
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