SAP's quarter didn't turn out quite as well as Oracle's, its great competitor.

Oracle's earnings in the calendar second quarter were up 25%, helped by the Sun acquisition. SAP's profits were up 16% to $638 million (€491 million), or 52 cents a share, but not as much as the punters thought they should be and it didn't boost its sales outlook as much as expected either.

It did say that its acquisition of Sybase should increase software and software-related services by 9%-11% this year, up from 4%-8%, with an operating margin of 30%-31% and its Q2 results, especially in the U.S., where software revenue was up 64%, seem to indicate that the spending freeze has thawed.

EMEA, which basically means Europe, was down 9.4%. Asia Pacific and Japan was up 11%.

Software license sales were up 17% to $828 million (€637 million) and software and related services were up 16% to $2.93 billion (€2.26 billion).

Revenues came in at $3.68 billion (€2.89 billion), up 8% in constant currency and better than expected.

SAP, by the way, is finally on the cusp of releasing its on-demand Business ByDesign on July 31 after a two-year delay. Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe said users now have to be taught "they can run their whole business on-demand."