Oracle, the center of much Wall Street anticipation this week, came in $100 million and change shy of expectations on the revenue front but gave the punters the 30% increase in profits they expected.

It took a nasty 7% hit and passed the tailspin on to the rest of tech as a skittish Wall Street worried about the fate of spending.

CFO Safra Catz said that Oracle had some difficulty closing deals towards the end of the quarter, which finished February 29 – some deals took longer, some simply didn’t close. She blamed it on customer caution.

So, given the environment, she’s projecting a close rate this quarter, traditionally Oracle’s strongest quarter, five-10 points below the company’s normal levels, still expecting to come in at the top or beyond, but allowing room for economic deterioration.

“So we’re comfortable with our numbers,” she said.

Oracle attributed any difficulties closing deals last quarter – and that included EMEA – to headline reading rather than any systematic problems in the accounts although that would appear to be patently impossible considering its customer base. Its pipeline this quarter is reportedly bigger than last year. It claimed to be taking market share from IBM but made little of it.

The company said its fiscal third-quarter GAAP earnings per share were 26 cents on revenues up 21% to $5.35 billion. Wall Street wanted $5.42 billion.

Oracle’s GAAP operating income was up 35% to $1.9 billion and GAAP net income was up 30% to $1.3 billion.

Total GAAP software revenues were up 21% to $4.24 billion with new GAAP software license revenues up 16% to $1.6 billion.

Back in December Oracle had been anticipating new software sales up 15%-25%.

Database and middleware new license revenues were up 20% and applications new license revenues were up 7% to $451 million.

The applications numbers disappointed Wall Street and remember applications were a lot of what Oracle’s buying spree was all about.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that the company was up against a tough compare since applications last Q3 had surged 57%. Growth is accelerating, he claimed, and the picture should look better this quarter since the compare is easier. Well, yes, that’s one way of looking at it. Applications were up only 13% last Q4.

GAAP Q3 software license updates and product support revenues were up 25% to $2.6 billion. Service revenues were up 21% to $1.1 billion.

Oracle gained six points from currency.

According to Oracle the quarter was strong and exceeded its EPS growth target of 20%.

Catz said in canned statement, “For the first three quarters of this year we have grown our operating cash flow 55%, three times faster than at this point in the past five years.”

“Software license updates and product support revenues were up 23% on a non-GAAP basis to $2.6 billion. By next quarter we expect to pass $10 billion for the year,” Ellison said. “Our non-GAAP operating income grew to $2.2 billion with our margins increasing nearly 200 basis points to 41% up from 39% in Q3 of last year. Our operating margins are now substantially higher than our competitors, including Microsoft, reflecting the unique leverage in our business.”

Oracle is forecasting EPS this quarter of 43 cents-44 cents or a net of 37 cents-38 cents on revenue up 15%-19% (GAAP) and figures new licenses will be up somewhere between a “less likely” 10% and at least 20%, though it’s holding out the possibility of an upside, a pretty wide spread.

It should also absorb BEA in Q4; BEA is supposed to tickle Oracle’s margins and cash flow.