Oracle’s Profit Increases by a Third

Oracle Corp.’s fiscal first-quarter earnings rose by one-third, matching estimates, although the company’s shares fell after sales of its new database software were less than what some analysts expected. Oracle’s profit before a charge rose to $149.8 million, or 15 cents a share, for the period ending Aug. 31, from $113.0 million, or 11 cents, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue rose 30% to $1.37 billion from $1.05 billion. Redwood Shores-based Oracle released the updated version of its main product in June, saying that the new Oracle8 software helped widen the lead over rivals Informix Corp. and Sybase Inc. in the market to manage large amounts of information. That claim wasn’t born out, analysts said, with sales for the division that makes such databases up just 6%. Oracle shares rose $1.56 to $39.56 on Nasdaq in regular trading, but dropped to $37.50 in after-hours trading.