Oracle shares are getting a lift from Piper Sandler analyst Brent Bracelin, who raised his rating on the enterprise software company to Overweight from Neutral, with a higher target for the stock price.

As Barron's laid out in a cover story in February 2021 , Oracle (ticker: ORCL) has been going through a transformation, gradually shifting its database and enterprise application software business to a cloud model, while also carving out a presence in the public cloud sector in competition with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. And the plan seems to be working.

Bracelin pointed out in a research note that from fiscal 2012 through fiscal 2022, Oracle delivered just 1% annualized growth in revenue and operating profits. But he sees fiscal 2024 "shaping up to be a watershed year," with growth potentially exceeding 10%.

He raised his target for the stock price to $104 from $85. Monday morning, the shares were 1.7% higher at $86.80.

Bracelin said "the transformation could be more durable than investors appreciate," with Oracle's application and infrastructure cloud business— including the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure public cloud business and the company's core cloud-based software apps for accounting and human resources—expected to surpass the database segment in revenue in fiscal 2025.

The business revamp, plus a 45% reduction in the share count after a decade of aggressive stock buybacks, could bring faster growth in per-share earnings than many investors realize, he said.