Oracle profits from Sun and sales

Oracle has delivered a better-than-expected fourth quarter courtesy of strong hardware sales, notably an operating profit at Sun and strong sales of Exadata database machines.

The company on Thursday reported earnings of $2.4bn (£1.6bn), or 46 cents a share, on revenue of $9.5bn, according to a statement. Non-GAAP earnings were 60 cents a share, well ahead of the 54 cents a share expected by Wall Street. Sales were in line with expectations, but Oracle's profit got a boost from better-than-expected hardware sales.

Sun contributed about $400m in non-GAAP operating income. In a statement, Oracle chief financial officer Jeff Epstein said Sun had $1.2bn in systems revenue.

For more on this story, see Oracle: Sun profitable; Exadata sales pipeline nears $1 billion on ZDNet.com.