Wall Street will be looking far beyond the numbers when software maker Oracle Corp. reports its latest results after the closing bell.

Oracle (ORCL: down $0.45 to $13.44, Research, Estimates), the No. 2 independent software supplier behind Microsoft Corp., on March 1 pre-announced the quarter, which ended Feb. 28, telling investors to expect earnings of nine cents per share. That's a penny short of most analysts previous estimates and a penny shy of its results in the same quarter a year ago.

Executives of Oracle pinned the blame for the shortfall in the quarter, its fiscal third, primarily on weakness in Asia. But at the same time, several of Oracle's rivals stressed that their business in Asia has been tracking within expectations, seeking to distance themselves from Oracle, whose shares plunged more than 14 percent following its March 1 profit warning.

Some company watchers suspect that Oracle's troubles reach beyond Asia, and that much of the weakness in its business is company-specific.

"I'd be surprised if the strain was localized to Asia," said Merrill Lynch analyst Chris Shilakes. "Most of the survey work that we've done leading up into the end of the quarter also indicated that business was quite difficult in the U.S., and I wouldn't rule out a miss in Europe as well."

Primarily known for its database products, which remain its core business, Oracle recently has extended its reach into related business applications. That shift has exposed the company to intense competition from companies such as Siebel Systems (SEBL: down $1.02 to $33.91, Research, Estimates), BEA Systems (BEAS: down $0.38 to $14.94, Research, Estimates) and SAP (SAP: up $0.55 to $36.55, Research, Estimates).

Wall Street is counting on Oracle's applications business to drive earnings growth. But so far, its been a rough start, according to Shilakes, who said a large part of the weakness in the third quarter likely came from Oracle's applications business.

"I think Oracle's fighting an uphill battle there," Shilakes said.

Bob Austrian, a software analyst at Banc of America Securities, agreed that Oracle has been struggling with its applications business. "They have yet to achieve needed traction there," he said.

Analysts will get a better idea of how Oracle's applications business has been tracking when it breaks out the percentage of sales derived from those products compared with sales of database products.

At the same time, Oracle's database business, which declined 10 percent in the fiscal second quarter, has been facing an increased competitive threat from the likes of Microsoft (MSFT: down $0.88 to $61.22, Research, Estimates) and IBM (IBM: down $0.58 to $106.60, Research, Estimates).

Oracle executives also should expect to be taken to task on some key accounting issues, specifically its practice of selling some of its accounts receivable -- which refers to money owed to the company for merchandise or services sold on an open account -- to third-party finance companies.

"That tends to cause accounts receivables that they report to us every quarter to be understated," said Sanjiv Hingorani, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Hingorani said he would like Oracle, which has disclosed this practice in regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, to provide more details about them, specifically the structure of the transactions and their dollar amounts.

"I'm particularly interested in this given the fact that Arthur Andersen is their auditor," he said.

Arthur Andersen served as auditor for bankrupt energy trader Enron.

As for the company's outlook, Hingorani said he hopes Oracle's executives, especially CEO Larry Ellison, to take a more "realistic" stance with regards to growth projections. Over the last three quarters, the company has missed its growth targets.

"In each one of the last three quarters, he has been wrong," he said. "If he's going to have that level of optimism again, I'd like to know what he is basing that on, and I don't mean his opinion, his wish and his dream. We all have wishes and dreams. We need to have something more tangible."

Oracle's fiscal fourth-quarter ending in May historically has been the company's strongest. Executives previously have said they expect to earn between 17 cents and 18 cents per share in the fourth quarter.

However, the consensus estimate of analysts polled by earnings tracker First Call is for a profit of 14 cents per share, an estimate some company watchers expect will be reduced following the company's earnings teleconference Thursday evening.