NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Please forgive Oracle shareholders if they are suffering a bit from triskaidekaphobia -- the fear of the number 13.

Since the database software giant announced disappointing fiscal first quarter sales in mid-September, Oracle's stock has failed to close above $13.

And unless Oracle delivers a stronger than expected fiscal second quarter report Monday, the stock price is likely to remain below that unlucky level.

While other software stocks have taken off, Oracle has failed to crack $13 for the past three months.

Analysts expect Oracle to report earnings of 11 cents a share, up from 10 cents a year ago, according to First Call. On the sales side, Wall Street is predicting revenue of $2.4 billion, a 4.2 percent increase.

But the most important number that Wall Street will be looking at is license revenue, because that measures how much new software Oracle has sold.

Cheng Lim, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners, and Brendan Barnicle, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, both said that Oracle must report at least $800 million in license revenue to satisfy Wall Street.

If Oracle can beat that number, it could help restore confidence in the company and show Wall Street that the weak first quarter sales might have been a minor blip.

Shares of Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates) are down about 1 percent since it announced its first quarter results on Sept. 12 while shares of PeopleSoft (PSFT: Research, Estimates), the application software company that has been fighting a hostile takeover bid of Oracle's since June, are up 10 percent.

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Shares of competitors SAP (SAP: Research, Estimates) and Siebel Systems (SEBL: Research, Estimates) are up about 25 percent.

Clearly, investors are getting a little bit more excited about the prospects for a pickup in spending on application software, which helps large businesses manage their payrolls, supply chains, and customer service functions among other things.

But Oracle has been left behind during this rally, mainly because of fears about the effects that the protracted PeopleSoft saga is having on sales of Oracle's application software.

Lim said he thinks Oracle's applications business is probably still weak because PeopleSoft has been winning customers by offering them substantial refunds in the event that Oracle's takeover bid is successful.

Oracle has stated that if it acquires PeopleSoft it would probably discontinue PeopleSoft's software and switch customers to Oracle products.

Lim said that Oracle's database business most likely improved in the quarter but that's a small consolation since that business is maturing. The primary reason Oracle is interested in buying PeopleSoft is to add customers in the more lucrative applications business.

Oracle's $19.50 a share hostile bid for PeopleSoft is set to expire on Dec. 31 but it is likely to be extended because the Department of Justice and European Union are still reviewing the offer.

If either entity rejects it on anti-trust concerns, Oracle will probably walk away, Barnicle said.

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But even if regulators approve the deal, Barnicle said that Oracle still faces many challenges.

Oracle would either need to raise its bid, which Barnicle doesn't expect, or hope that PeopleSoft's board will finally agree to a friendly deal, which also doesn't seem plausible since PeopleSoft has been demonstrating fairly solid fundamentals.

"Oracle is betting on PeopleSoft stumbling sometime next year but that's unlikely," Barnicle said.

So as long as PeopleSoft remains a distraction, it might be tough for Oracle to really post numbers that can wow Wall Street.

Barnicle said he's worried that even if the fiscal second quarter numbers are slightly better than expected, guidance for the fiscal third quarter could be fairly lackluster.

Analysts are expecting sales of $2.4 billion and earnings of 11 cents per share, in other words, unchanged from the fiscal second quarter and Barnicle doubts Oracle will raise these targets.

Lim agrees and with that in mind, he said he'd be wary of Oracle even though it's been a laggard.

"Am I running out there and saying that you should back up the truck at these levels? No," Lim said.

Analysts quoted in this story do not have a position in Oracle and their firms have no investment banking relationships with the company.