I don't think it is primarily a Y2K issue, as we haven't seen this same kind of situation at any other enterprise software company. Maybe a small percentage (10%?) could be Y2K related. but, it is true that if they essentially doubled their salesforce, it takes 9 - 12 months for these guys to be fully productive - and with that many hires, there are bound to be some dogs in there, too.
and, adding that many salespeople requires sales management to work to get them up to speed, distracting from deal closing.
The question is, how long will it take for them to get going. At CLFY, they hired lots of salespeople, and the benefits (at least to the stock) still have not materialized. At VNTV, on the other hand, it's in there.
So, how long will this falling knife go before we reach out to catch it? Gotta make sure of 2 things: a) that it's near the bottom, and still doesn't have another 5 points to drop (which it might). b) that it doesn't become dead money and just hang out at 15 or 18 or whatever for 6 months or a year. |
