Oracle has reported some juicy numbers for its second fiscal 2011 quarter which ended November 30 . Its revenue came in at a neat $8.6 billion, up 47 percent over the $5.9 billion it reported for its second fiscal quarter of 2010. Oracle also said that its income for the quarter was $1.9 billion, up 28 percent over the $1.5 billion it reported last year, as well as earnings per share of 37 cents, up 27 percent over the same quarter last year. Oracle's total software revenue including new software license revenue, software license updates and product support hit $5.6 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year.

The software giant was also able to prove that it has met with success in harnessing its Sun Microsystems assets for additional growth. What's quite impressive is that 20 percent of its revenue is actually owed to the acquired hardware. It has particularly encountered success in clever integration of its datawarehousing and analytics software with Sun's storage and server hardware which is exemplified in its Exadata pipeline and the more recent Exalogic application server appliance that it calls "cloud in a box."

Not content to challenge IBM and HP in the high-end server market, the company has also decided to give Google docs and MS office not to mention Salesforce.com's Database.com a run for their money with new web based productivity tools Oracle Cloud Office and Open Office 3.3 that offer applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database and drawings. Oracle Cloud Office 1.0 is a web and mobile office suite that enables web 2.0-style collaboration and mobile document access with support for Microsoft Office and collaboration with Open Office . Sun's Open Office in its latest version now includes new enterprise connectors to Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle E-Business Suite, other Oracle Applications and Microsoft Sharepoint. Clients are given the option to utilize Oracle Cloud Office software which according to Oracle costs "up to five times lower" than Microsoft Office, as an on-premise, on-demand or SaaS deployment. Both products run on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, as well as Web browsers and smartphones such as the Apple iPhone.