To be fair, though, some of Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)'s competitors have seen similar trouble. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) suffered from weak government orders in the U.S. and China, sending its first-quarter revenue down 5%. Although Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has seen its stock soar so far this year, HP has also been having to work hard to try to succeed in a sluggish IT-spending environment. Earlier this month, Oracle announced an expanded strategic alliance with long-struggling Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL). The partnership allows Oracle to take advantage of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL)'s hardware expertise as it tries to offer an integrated networking, storage, and server solution to the challenges customers have in meeting their IT needs, especially in connection with building up their cloud-computing capability.