Stop spinning

15 September 2016 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

The headline on the $166 bln software firm’s earnings release touted 77 pct revenue growth. Unfortunately, that was for a unit that accounts for only 9 pct of sales. Total top-line growth was 2 pct. Though a standard GAAP figure not a custom measure, it’s still unnecessary spin.

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Oracle on Sept. 15 reported earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2017, the period to Aug. 31.

Revenue rose 2 percent year-on-year to $8.6 billion, while net income increased 5 percent to $1.8 billion or 43 cents per share on a diluted basis.

The headline of the earnings press release read: "Q1 FY17 GAAP SaaS and PaaS revenues were up 77 percent, and up 79 percent in constant currency."

GAAP refers to generally accepted accounting principles, while SaaS and PaaS refers to software as a service and platform as a service, a category accounting for 9 percent of Oracle's total revenue in the quarter to August.

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