Oracle Paid Chief Larry Ellison $35 Million in 2007 Fiscal Year

Oracle Corp., the world's third- largest software maker, paid Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison $35 million in fiscal 2007.

The amount included a $1 million salary and $24 million in stock options, the company said in a regulatory filing today. Ellison also received an $8.37 million bonus and $1.72 million in perks including insurance, home security, and family members' trips on the company plane in the year ended in May.

Ellison, 63, received $1 million in salary with a $6.41 million bonus in 2006. Profit at Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, rose 59 percent in the past three years and sales increased 77 percent after Ellison made Oracle the most acquisitive software company.

Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz received $14.6 million in total compensation and Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, took in $12.7 million.

Oracle's shares fell 38 cents to $20.07 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading today. The shares are up 17 percent this year.

Author: Amy Thomson @ Bloomberg.net

Read more ...

Strong results seen for Oracle

Oracle Corp. is expected to post strong gains in first-quarter profit and sales when it reports results next week, despite tough year-over-year comparisons and concerns about the impact of the credit crisis on the business software maker.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect Oracle to post earnings excluding certain items of 21 cents a share, and $4.3 billion in revenue. That compares to earnings of 18 cents a share, and $3.7 billion in revenue in the same period a year earlier. Oracle is expected to report quarterly results Thursday.
The high expectations come even as Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle's numbers for the period ended in August will be compared to a very strong quarter a year earlier, when the company beat analysts' expectations and sent its shares surging higher.
In addition, questions have been raised recently about potentially weakening demand for the software that Oracle sells to banks and other businesses, who have retrenched during an economic downturn.

Oracle has "enough irons in the fire to offset a tough compare" to last year's quarter, Bank of America analyst Kirk Materne said in a note released Wednesday. Materne's expectations for sales and profit are in line with those of other analysts, and he has a buy rating on the shares.
Oracle's products used by financial institutions that are suffering alongside the credit market include those developed by recent acquisition Hyperion Solutions. In addition, analysts wonder whether other companies affected by the crisis may also rein in software spending.
Materne said that while Oracle's first quarter results should not be impacted by the credit crisis, investors should pay special attention to the company's guidance, "to help gauge the impact of recent macro turmoil on enterprise spending."

"Any 'macro color' will be a focus," Materne said.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brendan Barnicle said in a note released last week that, "Our channel contacts continue to report that Oracle had a solid" first quarter. Barnicle has an outperform rating on the shares.

Barnicle said he was surprised to see no negative impact on Oracle's financial services software business from the credit crisis. "We did speak with some contacts who are concerned that the financial services vertical could be weak in the remainder of the year, but they had not seen weakness in" the first quarter, Barnicle said.

Of particular interest when Oracle announces results will be reported growth in sales of new software applications licenses, a closely-watched metric as the company moves further into applications to complement its traditional database software business.
In its fiscal fourth quarter, Oracle's reported 13% growth in applications license sales disappointed analysts and investors. See related column.

Oracle cited a difficult year-over-year comparison for the lackluster growth. Chief Executive Larry Ellison said at that time that he expects applications license revenue "to grow strongly" in the first quarter, compared to the period a year earlier.

Author: John Letzing @ MarketWatch.com

Read more ...

Ubuntu comes knocking on Oracle's door

The Ubuntu Server needs increased support from independent software vendors and system builders.

"The acid test for Ubuntu Server is Oracle," Canonical chief executive Mark Shuttleworth told vnunet.com in an interview at the VMworld conference in San Francisco.

Ubuntu is best know for its desktop Linux distribution which Dell ships on its consumer Linux desktop PCs, but the group is seeing an increasing interest in its server version that was launched in 2005.

Certification for third party applications such as Oracle's database is considered critical for the continued growth of Canonical's support services. Firms that seek professional support typically also require that their software and hardware are certified to run the Linux distribution.

Ubuntu Server is different from Red Hat and Novell because the software isn't sold as a subscription with support. Support is available from Canonical, the project's corporate sponsor.

Increased vendor support could boost Ubuntu's overall credibility. Oracle's support for Linux in 1998 is considered a watershed moment in the history of the operating system. As the database is the most widely used, mission critical enterprise application available, its support instilled a new level of trust in the software.

The enterprise software giant might not be as eager to throw its weight behind Ubuntu, however. Oracle last year launched its Unbreakable Linux initiative, which is essentially a special Oracle distribution of the open source operating system. This renders Ubuntu a potential competitive threat.

Oracle might not be able to hold out for long however. Although Shuttleworth typified adoption rates as "early stage", he said that the software is penetr ating deeper into the enterprise.

Enterprises adoption of Ubuntu Server is following an adoption pattern typical to open source software. Technology enthusiast start experimenting at home, then deploy it on non-mission critical systems such as file and print servers. Ubuntu Sever is currently starting to move up the food chain in areas such as high performance computing.

The final missing piece is support from hardware vendors. Sun Microsystems is currently the only major system builder which certifies its hardware for Ubuntu. Shuttleworth however argued that Ubuntu can put firms in touch with the open source community. Red Hat and Novell, by comparison, position themselves as a platform provider that provides a one-stop-shop.

"We have to leverage our insight into how open source really works," said Shuttleworth.

"We don't see ourselves as the sole platform provider. We are leaner [than Red Hat or Novell]."

Novell and Red Hat for instance emphasise that they provide only one version of their software, which makes it easier for independent software vendors and hardware makers to support and certify their products.

Ubuntu addresses those needs by periodically freezing one of its releases and promising long term support for it. The first long term release version was release in June 2006, a second one is slated for release in April 2008.

Canonical offers commercial support for its software. But the majority of its revenues come from the creation of custom Linux distributions for use with embedded applications. It also creates 'gold disks' for firms that seek a customized Linux installation that they can install on a large number of servers or desktops. The company is furthermore in the process of developing a mobile distribution that will be sold to cellphone makers and on Tuesday unveiled a special distribution for use in virtual appliances.

Ubuntu Server further plans to compete against Red Hat and Novell by following a different development path.

Ubuntu is trying not to fall for the feature bloating trap, said Rick Clark, manager for Canonical's server team.

"We have to make sure that everything we put in there is appropriate," Clark told vnunet.com. "We can learn from Red Hat's mistakes."

Red Hat Enterprise Server for instance features a graphical user interface and mp3 player, two features that would appeal mostly to desktop users. Debian's packing structure, on which Ubuntu based, allows developers to leave out rarely used features, but make them available for automatic download if they are needed.

For the upcoming Gutsy gibbon release of Ubuntu Server meanwhile, developers are focussing on security and interoperability with Windows systems.

Due out on 18 October, the software will allow users to more easily connect to as Microsoft's Active Directory as well as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), a standard that allows users to find sources on a network.

The software will also introduce App Armor, a technology that Clark claims is more secure the SELinux standard because it allows users to isolate processes. This for instance could prevent a hacker who targets the web server from gaining access to the customer database or other parts of the system.

Author: Tom Sanders @ vnunet.com

Read more ...