Oracle profit slides despite rapid growth in cloud

Oracle reported its fourth consecutive quarter of declining revenue on Tuesday, as rapid growth in its cloud business failed to offset the tepid demand for more traditional products.Oracle said sales of its cloud services jumped 40 percent in the quarter ended Feb. 29, to $735 million, led by its platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service offerings.But those cloud services accounted for only 8 percent of its overall business, and when it came to the hardware and software that customers inst