Oracle Corp. came up slightly short of expectations with its quarterly earnings report Thursday, and shares declined in late trading. The enterprise software giant reported net income of $1.8 billion, or 43 cents a share, on sales of $8.6 billion for its fiscal first quarter; after adjustments for stock-based compensation and other factors, Oracle claimed earnings of 55 cents a share. Analysts on average expected Oracle to report adjusted earnings of 58 cents a share on sales of $8.7 billion, according to FactSet. Oracle also missed its own projection for sales, which called for revenue of $8.62 billion to $8.87 billion. Oracle’s transition to a cloud model of software delivery came up a bit short as well, with total cloud revenue of $969 million trailing the average analyst expectation of $971.4 million, according to FactSet. Oracle has agreed to buy cloud-software company NetSuite Inc. for $9.3 billion to add to that total, but that acquisition is not yet assured. Oracle shares fell to close to $40 after the report was released, after the stock closed with a 1.5% gain at $40.86.
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