Oracle revenues up 26 per cent

Software giant surpassed expectations with sales worth $4.5bn (£2.2bn) in the last three months

Philips: Oracle is not moving down market

Oracle beat predictions with sales worth $4.5bn (£2.2bn) and a 26 per cent rise on the same quarter last year.

Earnings per share were up 28 per cent compared to the same quarter last year.

The results reflect the firm's strategy to focus on the high-end of the market, said Oracle president Charles Phillips.

'We like our growth strategy of expanding into high-end industry specific vertical software as opposed to SAP's growth strategy of moving down market to sell software to small companies,' he said.

Oracle has recently acquired several companies who make business applications and is continuing to focus on its high end database software.

Middleware earnings also helped drive the good results, and chief executive Larry Ellison said Oracle will have overtaken IBM in this market by the end of the year.