rate fluctuations, hardware systems support revenues decreased in fiscal 2013 primarily due to reductions in sales volumes of certain of our legacy hardware systems product lines for which we offer hardware systems support. As described above, the amounts of hardware systems support revenues that we recognized in fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2012 were affected by business combination accounting rules.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems support expenses decreased in fiscal 2013 primarily due to a reduction in employee related expenses attributable to decreased headcount, reduced service delivery costs due to operational initiatives, lower bad debt expenses, and lower amortization of intangible assets.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems support margin and margin as a percentage of total revenues increased in fiscal 2013 due to the reduction in our total hardware systems support expenses.

Services Business

Our services business consists of consulting, advanced customer support services and education services. Consulting revenues are earned by providing services to customers in business and IT strategy alignment, enterprise architecture planning and design, initial product implementation and integration, and ongoing product enhancements and upgrades. Advanced customer support services are provided on-premise and remotely to our customers to enable increased performance and higher availability of their Oracle products and services. Education revenues are earned by providing instructor-led, media-based, internet-based and custom training in the use of our software and hardware offerings. The cost of providing our services consists primarily of personnel related expenses, technology infrastructure expenditures, facilities expenses and external contractor expenses.

Fiscal 2014 Compared to Fiscal 2013:     Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, our total services revenues decreased in fiscal 2014 due to revenue decreases in each of our services segments. The largest services revenues decrease was to our consulting segment’s revenues.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, our total services expenses decreased during fiscal 2014 primarily due to expense decreases in our consulting services segment due to decreased headcount, lower external contractor costs, lower intangible asset amortization, and a decrease in certain other operating expenses, net.

In constant currency, total services margin and total margin as a percentage of total services revenues increased during fiscal 2014 due to our expense reductions for this business.

Fiscal 2013 Compared to Fiscal 2012:     Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, our total services revenues decreased in fiscal 2013 due to revenue decreases in each of our services segments. The largest services revenues decrease in fiscal 2013 was to our consulting segment’s revenues.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total services expenses decreased during fiscal 2013 primarily due to expense decreases across all of our services segments, which consisted primarily of decreases in