Shares of Oracle Corp rose 5 percent on Friday, a day after the world's third-largest software maker forecast solid sales of new business software, signaling strength against Hewlett-Packard and IBM in data center and cloud computing businesses.

At least 12 brokerages raised their price targets on the company's shares, which were up at $33.60 in pre-market trading. They closed at $32.14 on Thursday on Nasdaq.

Oracle is well-positioned with its deep software stack, strong sales execution...The acquisition of Sun places Oracle as a datacenter player providing a complete integrated stack of hardware and software, Bank of America said in a note to clients.

Oracle, whose products are used to manage databases and automate businesses, ventured into high-end servers and other hardware with its $7.5 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems last year.

Like IBM and Cisco Systems , Oracle and HP are aiming to provide the infrastructure for companies to move toward cloud computing, where data is handled remotely in data centers rather than on premises, deploying resources better and cutting costs.

FBR Capital Markets said Oracle's upcoming suite of business management software, dubbed Fusion, should allow it to take market share from rivals.

The brokerage said Oracle's integrated software and hardware portfolio has opened up new end markets and opportunities beyond its somewhat mature traditional business.

On Thursday, Oracle delivered quarterly results and forecasts that beat Wall Street expectations. The company also forecast a 4 to 14 percent rise in sales of new software in the fourth quarter.

The company also boosted its quarterly dividend by 20 percent, matching rival SAP's recent increase.

Oracle, which derives 5 percent of its revenue from Japan, has said its building in the quake-hit country was undamaged and it did not expect the disaster to hurt fourth-quarter results.

In addition, Oracle does not expect any supply chain issues presumably related to a relationship with Fujitsu Ltd <6702.T> to manufacture SPARC processors in Japan, JP Morgan said in a note..

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh and Isheeta Sanghi in Bangalore)

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