Oracle on Tuesday said third-quarter net income rose 18 percent to US$2.5 billion, while revenues grew 3 percent to $9 billion. However, hardware systems revenues sagged 16 percent to $869 million.

A document tied to an internal Hewlett-Packard sexual harassment investigation of former CEO Mark Hurd will remain sealed, according to a ruling handed down this week by the Delaware Supreme Court.

One thing became clear at Oracle's OpenWorld conference on Monday: The vendor is intent on drilling the benefits of its hardware-plus-software systems into a customer base that largely remains invested only in Oracle's applications, databases and middleware.

Having gone through a rash of CEOs in the past 10 to 15 years, Hewlett-Packard may soon find itself looking for yet another new chief, despite just tapping Meg Whitman for that job this week.

Oracle is hoping to capture the fancy of smaller companies enamored with its Exadata data-processing machine, announcing Wednesday the availability of a new database appliance configured for SMBs' needs and budgets.