Fresh off its annual OpenWorld conference, Oracle earned top rankings in a corporate software usage study released this week by ChangeWave, an investment research firm.

The study also found that 18 percent of respondents planned to spend more money on software within the next 90 days and 14 percent planned to spend less.

The study, which was conducted during October, surveyed 1,780 people involved with IT spending in their organizations, according to ChangeWave.

The study found that 36 percent of respondents use Oracle's BI (business-intelligence) software in their companies, up eight points from the last survey, which was conducted in July. However, Microsoft followed closely behind with 35 percent, according to ChangeWave. Hyperion Solutions, which Oracle acquired this year, also saw gains for its BI offerings, moving up five points to 19 percent.

For CRM (customer relationship management) software, Oracle maintained the 26 percent usage rate pegged by the July study, followed by SAP and Microsoft with 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Oracle also made modest gains for ERP (enterprise resource planning), rising two points to 32 percent behind leader SAP, which had 38 percent usage. Microsoft showed much stronger momentum here, however, shooting up 15 points to 29 percent, according to ChangeWave.

The organization also asked respondents to reveal from which vendors their companies planned to purchase software in the next three months. Oracle showed a 5 percent uptick, while SAP remained flat and Microsoft dipped by five points.

"Oracle is showing surprising strength in an otherwise calm macro environment," said Paul Carton, director of research at ChangeWave.

Carton also said the findings regarding increased software spending are a positive sign for the industry overall. "The fact is we've seen this downtick all year, and to see it stabilizing now is interesting," he said.

Carton said 83 percent of ChangeWave's pool of about 10,000 potential respondents are in the U.S. and 17 percent are in Canada and Europe, and the survey results should be viewed accordingly. "Essentially, you're looking at the Nasdaq economy and how it buys stuff," he said. But, he asserted, "It's always been great at measuring market share."

The study findings arrive several days after the conclusion of OpenWorld in San Francisco, during which Oracle previewed its next-generation Fusion applications and launched a virtualization product, Oracle VM.

Oracle shares were trading at US$20.39 Monday afternoon.