It feels to us like in Q4 we hit the bottom, and if anything, demand may be getting a bit better in Q1. |
Larry is understating it, |
Nine months ago, we set out to save one billion dollars annually by using our own Internet e-Business applications, ... That billion dollar savings translates to a 10 point improvement in our margin. |
Nobody knows exactly how this year is going to play out, ... We do know there was a bubble of spending for applications a year or two ago. The bubble kind of burst and for a few quarters the ERP market [has been] kind of soft. It's a tough environment. |
Our assumption is that the U.S. economy will continue to improve, at least gradually, but technology spending will not show significant improvement probably for another six months. |
Our current assumption is that we hit the bottom in [the second quarter]. |
Our visibility going forward remains very limited, as has been the case for the last 18 months, |
Solid execution in the field, a strengthening competitive position, and an improving economy contributed to results that were above expectations, |
The Asia Pacific market is not any better, but business in the U.S. and Europe has really bounced back, |
There was a concern that our database business was not doing well, but it's definitely shown a significant improvement from the first half of the year, |
Underneath it all, if you normalize the numbers, we continue to show good growth in our license business, |
Visibility beyond the upcoming quarter is minimal, but we continue to believe that we will see year-over-year improvements. |
We don't see anything for the rest of this year that looks negative at all. We think that business is going to be terrific this year. |
We have an enormous sales pipeline for both applications and technology, ... Typically that's proven to be a good indicator of how we'll do. |
We're optimistic. We definitely think the worst is over and things are going to start getting better. |