The news that Oracle missed Wall Street forecasts sent its shares tumbling 9% and raised demand fears.  It is the first time since 2008 that Oracle had reported a decline in its revenues from maintenance on its software.  Second quarter revenue rose 2% from last year to $8.8 billion while profits rose to $2.19 billion from $1.87 billion last year, reports ‘The Times’.

The question is how bad are these figures and do they represent a general decline in the overall IT sector?  When the same thing happened to Oracle in 2008 it was followed by a very tough year for technology stocks.  Is the same about to happen again?   The signs are not good with Safra Catz, Oracle’s chief finance officer, explaining that customers are taking longer to agree contracts and in some cases requiring CEO sign off. 

In view of the recent economic turmoil this would seem to be natural process but does this point to similar profits warnings elsewhere in the IT sector or just an issue for Oracle?  The biggest worry for the world’s second largest software company is the 14% drop in hardware sales during the quarter.  

The acquisition of Sun made Oracle a ‘one-stop shop’ for hardware/software and analysts seem to be asking the question whether this is the main factor and might point to the problem being company specific and not necessarily an industry issue.