Database giant Oracle said profits for the recent quarter were $765 million, a sharp rise above the $540 million at the same point a year ago. Revenue was up 18 percent, to $3.5 billion. Sales of new licenses totaled $1.1 billion during the period. It’s no secret that much of Oracle’s $20 billion acquisition spree has been intended to help it catch up with the German enterprise software house SAP. But SAP still has twice as much market share in the business applications market as Oracle, according to AMR Research.