The company’s earnings statement, released on Tuesday for the three months ending in November, suggested that cutbacks in technology spending have begun at major companies and government agencies. Management reinforced that perception with a forecast calling for meager growth in the current quarter, which ends in February.

The statement alarmed investors, causing Oracle shares to slide more than 8.5 percent in after-hours trading.

Sales of Oracle’s new software licenses edged up only 2 percent from the same time last year. Analysts had expected a double-digit gain in new software licenses. Wall Street focuses on that part of the business because selling new software products generates a stream of future revenue from maintenance and upgrades.

Part of the problem with sales was that technology decision-makers delayed signing contracts during the final few days of the quarter, according to Safra A. Catz, Oracle’s president and chief financial officer. That could be an indication that companies and government agencies are treading more carefully as Europe’s debt problems linger.

“Clearly, this quarter was not what we thought it would be,” Ms. Catz told analysts in a conference call on Tuesday. She said the company was hoping some of the deals postponed in the last quarter would be completed within the next two months.

In Oracle’s computer hardware division, which the company has been trying to build since buying the fallen Silicon Valley star Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion last year, revenue dropped 10 percent from the same time last year.

Oracle earned $2.2 billion, or 43 cents a share, in its fiscal second quarter. That was a 17 percent increase from net income of $1.9 billion, or 37 cents a share at the same time last year. Excluding one-time items, Oracle earned 54 cents a share. That was below the average estimate of 57 cents a share among analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue for the period edged up 2 percent from last year to $8.8 billion. Analysts, on average, had projected revenue of $9.2 billion.

In the current quarter, Oracle expects its adjusted earnings to range from 55 cents to 58 cents a share — below the average analyst estimate of 59 cents a share. Revenue is expected to rise by 2 percent to 5 percent from the same period a year ago.

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