Oracle beats earnings forecast but says investments will tamp down next quarter SHARE Oracle Corp. today reported financial results that topped expectations in its fiscal third quarter on the strength of sales of its Generation 2 Cloud Infrastructure and cloud-based enterprise resource planning products. Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison also brashly predicted Oracle will ultimately lure away half of ERP rival SAP SE’s customers. The database giant said third-quarter profit of $5.02 billion nearly doubled from a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.16 bettered analyst forecasts of $1.11. Revenue rose to $10.09 billion from $9.8 billion a year earlier, slightly beating analysts’ estimates of $10.07 billion.