Oracle results shock investors, shares plunge

Oracle Corp's earnings fell short of Wall Street's forecasts for the first time in a decade as software and hardware sales sputtered, sending its shares down more than 10 percent and stoking fears a global recession will hurt tech spending.

The rare slip-up by the world's No. 3 software maker raised questions about the health of the technology sector as many companies in the industry gear up to close deals before the end of 2011.

Oracle joins a growing list of companies, including some of technology's biggest and oldest names, whose results and earnings forecasts have raised alarm bells about worsening business conditions. They include Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc, Red Hat, Intel Corp, Texas Instruments and NetApp. Shares of HP and Dell were down about 1 percent in after-hours trade, while two of Oracle's fiercest rivals in the software world, Salesforce.com Inc and Germany's SAP, were down 2 percent to 4 percent.