Oracle tells sales outlook still cloudy

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 (Reuters) - An Oracle Corp. executive on Monday said

the sales outlook for the world's No. 2 software company remained cloudy but

that its revenues should get a boost from the release of its new database

product and sales of its e-business software applications.

"We don't think this is a one-quarter bounce,", North American

executive vice president of sales George Roberts, told Reuters at a technology

conference in San Francisco. While the company can clearly see which

corporations are interested in buying Oracle's software, Roberts said: "The

issue is when we're ready to release the money."

In a session with analysts at a J P Morgan H&Q conference, Roberts

declined to comment on a note from Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown in which analyst

Jim Moore said he would "not be surprised," if Oracle were to reduce

estimates for its current fiscal fourth quarter sometime in early-to mid-May.

"We believe Oracle's guidance for 4Q'01 was rather aggressive

considering the current macro-environment, limited visibility and recent signs

of increased pricing pressure," Moore said in a note to clients. "We

would encourage investors to be cautious over the short term, as we would not be

surprised to see Oracle reduce estimates for 4Q'01 sometime in early-to

mid-May."

Oracle kick-started the recent downturn in the valuation of software stocks

when the giant, in early April, was the first to say it would miss Wall Street

expectations for its third quarter on account of the slowing US economy and a

decrease in information technology spending.

Later this month, Oracle is slated to begin shipping its 9i database, which

competes with products from Microsoft Corp. and computer giant International

Business Machines Corp. "We'll see the impact starting next year. It will

really start taking off in June," Roberts said.

But analysts have recently raised concerns that Oracle is losing its hold on

the database market, particularly to IBM. Roberts said however, that Oracle's

competitive win rate has not changed. Last week, Oracle announced a program to

sell customer relationship management and procurement software packages that

companies can have up and running in 90 days. That program is helping to close

accounts, Roberts told analysts.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.