Mr. T: re: Without the volume of SW licenses, SW profits will not offset services that are bound to drop
Bingo !!
Which means that revenues will decrease. Which is something that nobody wants to happen. Particularly now that the stock has risen so far so fast.
I'm really curious what the sales force has been telling their prospects lately. "Our new .NET version is available now. Sign here on the dotted line." ? I don't think so.
According to that rather strange email that RTB read at the RedChip conference, the "Wildcat IDE" was still being developed. Without that IDE, implementation customization will be difficult, if not impossible.
Perhaps the new version is in Beta (or, Alpha ... or, pre-Alpha?).
Would a salesman put his commission on the line for a Beta product, or would he sell the older version to be safe?
Would a buyer go to the hassle of installing the older version if he knew a completely new version was "almost ready", when he knows that he'll want to upgrade as soon as the new product is released?
If not, there's a good chance they'll delay their buying decision. Which means revenues for the quarter won't be as robust as hoped, assuming that projections were made based on the "availability" of the "best product ever" and the "best pipeline ever". Yet another reason not to pre-announce new versions. Particularly when you only have one product in your market basket.
From an R&D perspective, having multiple new customers out there on various versions of the Beta product would be a nightmare. Any time they made a change to the root data structures, they'd have to do a mini-conversion of each of those Beta sites. That means scheduling a time that is convenient for the site. Which disrupts the ongoing installation and implementation activities.
Hey !! Maybe that's what RTB meant when he said this new release was a true "disruptive technology" !!
Anyway, these are trying times for the FSTW tech staff. I'll bet they'll be glad when life returns to "normal" ... meaning only 10-12 hour days instead of 16.
Unless, of course, ALL the work is being done by the EL staff. In which case there's no knowledge transfer taking place from the EL staff to the FSTW staff ... which means extended involvement of EL staff after the product release ... which means lower consulting margins ... which means ... oh, never mind.
[pause ...]
Hey, wait a minute. You said something that wasn't glowingly positive.
You better watch out. Somebody's gonna' claim you're bitter.
Regards,
TED |
