Analysts were lukewarm about Oracle’s profit of $519 million (10 cents per share) for its first quarter, up slightly from $509 million (also 10 cents per share) last year. Revenue was up 25 percent to $2.77 billion from last year, mostly because of the major acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Retek. Also, 3Com’s loss grew to $42 million (11 cents per share). Palm did slightly better than last year but still lost $18.2 million (35 cents per share). They sold plenty of Treo smartphones, however. 

For more on the results:
- see these AP articles: Oracle | 3Com | Palm

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It was basically a matter of when, not if: Oracle is buying CRM specialist Siebel Systems for $5.83 billion. Unlike the $10 billion deal for PeopleSoft in 2004, which was contested by PeopleSoft’s leadership, today’s move was welcomed by Siebel’s commanders, including Tom Siebel himself, the largest shareholder and a former Oracle executive. Will federal, state and foreign governments approve the deal? How can Oracle integrate all these different technologies? What about the humongous issue of customer support? Will Microsoft now go and buy SAP? All we can do is wait and see.

For more on the deal:
- check out this AP article

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It’s been a year already since a federal court approved Oracle’s $10.3 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft. How’s it going? Customers say that, as expected, there’s less choice in which business applications to buy, and some of the smaller competitors don’t even bother bidding on big contracts anymore. Unexpectedly, customers say products from SAP remain expensive compared to Oracle’s, and that Oracle’s customer support has been surprisingly good.

For more on Oracle’s progress:
- read this article from TheDeal.com

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