Mark Townsend wrote:
> Serge Rielau wrote:
>
>> Also note that analysts generally count NEW licence revenues.
>
>
> Nope - the two leading analysts firms actually use very different
> metrics for revenue. At least one of them includes support revenue.
>
> Also, even when they do count new license revenue, the numbers are not
> always comparable.
>
> Some vendors charge for upgrades (i.e not part of a support contract),
> which then gets reported as new license revenues.
>
> Some other vendors will change license terms (maybe introducing new
> licensing packages, for example), and then report existing customers who
> transition from one license plan to a new license plan as 'new' revenue
> as well.
>
> And last but not least, if you look at SEC 10 Q filings, you will pretty
> much find that there is only one vendor that reports true license vs
> support revenue. Which then gives the other vendors some degree of
> leeway as to what they tell the analysts the actual split is.
So, if said vendor would e.g. convert a customer's Sun SMP box into a
cluster of Linux boxes. Would that be counted as new license revenue?
Cheers
Serge
--
Serge Rielau
DB2 SQL Compiler Development
IBM Toronto Lab
Received on Wed Nov 30 2005 - 02:23:18 CST
