Wall Street may be disappointed by Oracle's slowdown in revenue growth. But buyers should note that "Oracle has higher operating profit margins than its competitors, including Microsoft."
Software maintenance, along with printer ink, mobile calling, outsourced storage and a few other items, remains among the highest "empty calories" in IT spend. Even higher margins in Oracle's mostly acquisition driven, maintenance related revenue is not good for overall IT spend. Means as IT budgets get tightened they will likely spend proportionately more on keep the lights on, not on innovation areas.
Now that is a reason to feel gloomy.
