Bridgeline Digital Inc (BLIN) 2011 Q4 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bridgeline Digital fourth quarter fiscal year 2011 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Later we'll conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder today's event may be recorded.

  • And now I'd like to turn the program over to Michael Prinn, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, the floor is yours.

  • - SVP, CAO

  • Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm Mike Prinn, the Chief Accounting Officer of Bridgeline Digital. And we hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah last week. Welcome to Bridgeline's fourth quarter and fiscal year-end conference call.

  • Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that during this conference call comments we make regarding Bridgeline Digital that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause such statements to differ materially from actual future events or results. These statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The internal projections and beliefs upon which we base our expectations today may change over time and we undertake no obligation to inform you if they do. Results that we report today should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Changes in economic, business, competitive, technological, regulatory, and other factors could cause Bridgeline's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the projections or forward-looking statements made today. For more detailed information about these factors and other risks that may impact our business, please review the reports and documents filed from time to time by Bridgeline Digital with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • Also, please note on the call today we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures in talking about the Company's financial performance. We report our GAAP results as well as provide a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP financial measures in our Earnings Release. You can obtain a copy of our Earnings Release by visiting our website.

  • I would also like to remind you that the audio and the transcript of this call will be available for replay. You can find that information on the investor section of our web page.

  • At this time I'd like to turn the call over to Bridgeline Digital's President and CEO, Thomas Massie.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you, Mike. We are very pleased to inform you that Bridgeline Digital has recently completed a record revenue year with its annual sales of $26.3 million. Our new bookings increased 24% to $26 million. This is additive to our annualized recurring revenue base of $4 million. Bridgeline generated $1.5 million of positive EBITDA and generated $800,000 of cash from operations during the fiscal year. In addition, Bridgeline reduced the Company's liabilities by over $900,000. And we made over $700,000 of strategic investments into the IS cloud-based infrastructure.

  • Bridgeline's balance sheet has over $31 million in assets, only $10 million in liabilities, and over $21 million in stockholder equity. In addition to the record revenues and record new bookings, Bridgeline has completed record sales of iAPPS licenses with year-over-year growth of 47%. iAPPS has been embraced by hundreds of quality customers globally. In fiscal 2011, 54 different companies recognized iAPPS unique value and selected iAPPS to drive their mission-critical websites or online stores. Companies such as L'Oreal, General Electric, Novartis, CFO Magazine, American Dental Association, Dover, Tosoh, ViaWest, Children's Hospital, Getty's, and the United States Department of Energy. These world-class organizations selected iAPPS because of the rich benefits and features that only iAPPS can provide. Only iAPPS provides the deep integration of iAPPS Commerce, iAPPS Content Manager, iAPPS Marketeer, and iAPPS Analyzer, allowing our customers to truly maximize their web assets performance and their web assets return on investments.

  • In addition, these organizations value the flexibility of the iAPPS architecture, allowing them to deploy their site via state-of-the-art cloud SaaS delivery model or a traditional dedicated server environment. On average, each iAPPS engagement purchases three iAPPS licenses and generates approximately $365,000 in revenue contribution over a 36-month period. With approximately $185,000 of that revenue being recognized in the first 12 months.

  • iAPPS provides Bridgeline with a very strong business model that offers significant customer traction, recurring software revenues and recurring service revenues. Since we've launched our first iAPPS module three-and-a-half years ago, we have been transforming our business. Three-and-a-half years ago, iAPPS related revenue made up only 11% of our total sales. In fiscal 2011 iAPPS related revenue represented close to 50% of our annual revenues, with a very sizeable backlog in place. We believe iAPPS will make up approximately 70% of our total revenues in fiscal 2012 and over 90% of our revenues by 2013.

  • In October, we announced the acquisition of Florida-based Magnetic. Magnetic was an award-winning interactive technology company that has strong subject matter expertise in web content management system implementations and eCommerce implementations for its customers. For the past six years, Magnetic has been selected as one of the best places to work in the Tampa Metropolitan Area by the Tampa Bay Business Journal. In addition, Magnetic was a Microsoft Gold-Certified developer. In 2010, Magnetic had annual sales of approximately $2 million and they're profitable. Servicing a dot-net customer base that includes great companies like SunGard, the Florida State Golf Association, and Moffitt Cancer Center. Magnetic's Chief Executive Officer, Jennifer Bakunas, has joined Bridgeline Digital as our Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Florida region. Jennifer was recently selected as Businesswoman of the Year finalist for the Tampa Bay Business Journal. And she's a very capable business executive.

  • The State of Florida has an addressable market of over 1,700 companies that have annual revenues of $25 million or greater. They all have mission-critical websites or online stores. Eventually, they will become target customers for the iAPPS product suite. Jennifer and her team is proactively attacking her addressable market and introducing iAPPS to the Magnetic customer base. Over time, we believe Bridgeline Florida and our other business units will each sell on average 20 new iAPPS engagements per year. We currently have eight business units in the United States.

  • Last week, Bridgeline signed an agreement with a strategic Fortune 500 Company. We believe this alliance will be a significant catalyst for iAPPS and Bridgeline for years to come. As we have stated in the past, iAPPS sales cycles are four to six months. And our delivery cycles are also four to six months. Due to these lead times, Bridgeline doesn't believe we will see a financial impact of the newly-formed iAPPS alliance until our September quarter. However, this is a major catalyst that we believe will have a significant impact on fiscal 2013 and beyond. Bridgeline plans to announce the details of this powerful iAPPS alliance in mid 2012.

  • At this time I'll turn the call back over to Mike Prinn who will provide you with more details on Q4 and our fiscal 2011 financial results. Michael?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • Thanks, Thomas. I'd like to review results of operations for the quarter and year ended September 30, 2011. First, let's discuss the quarter ended September 30, 2011.

  • As Thomas mentioned revenue for the quarter decreased 4% to $6.6 million compared to $6.9 million for the same quarter of the prior year. The primary reason for the slight decline in revenue is a decrease in our service revenues quarter-over-quarter. We occasionally see a shift related to timing of engagements. However, we did see an increase in iAPPS related revenue in Q4 of this year compared to the same period a year ago. Revenue from subscription and perpetual license revenue increased by 17% to $598,000 compared to $511,000 from the same quarter a year ago. Revenue from managed service hosting increased 10% to $529,000 compared to $481,000 from the same quarter a year ago. This increase is primarily related to an increase in hosting demand from our iAPPS perpetual customers.

  • Our recurring revenue, which consists of SaaS licenses, annual maintenance and hosting, increased 10% compared to the same quarter a year ago as we continued to see an increased demand for our iAPPS product. Our gross profit for the quarter remained relatively flat in terms of dollars at $3.4 million. Our gross margin for the quarter, however, increased to 52% from 49% in the fourth quarter of last year. This increase is attributable to both an increase in license and managed hosting revenue, combined with a reduction in license and managed hosting costs as we continue to focus on higher gross margin iAPPS business.

  • We generated $444,000 of adjusted EBITDA for the quarter compared with $45,000 for the same quarter of last year. This is a $399,000 improvement from the fourth quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA on a diluted basis was $0.04 per share compared to $0.00 per share the same quarter of last year. The primary reason for the increase is due to improvement in our overall gross margin percentage as we continue to focus on iAPPS engagement, as well as a reduction in sales and marketing and general and administrative expenses. In addition, I'd like to point out that $330,000 positive cash flow from operations was generated in the fourth quarter 2011.

  • Our non-GAAP adjusted net income was $250,000 compared to $3,000 for the same quarter of the prior year. This is an increase of $247,000 quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.02 for the quarter compared to $0.00 for the same period of last year.

  • Next I'd like to review the results and operations for the year ended September 30 compared with the prior year. Total revenue for the year was $26.3 million compared with $23.6 million for the same period of the prior year, an increase of 11%. Revenue from web application development services increased $2 million or 10% compared to 2010. This increase is primarily related to an increase in iAPPS related revenue and an increase from the acquisitions in the second half of last year. Revenue from subscription and perpetual licenses increased 34% to $2.4 million from $1.8 million in the prior year. This increase is due to an increase in iAPPS related license revenue and an increase in iAPPS SaaS deployments.

  • Managed services hosting revenue increased 4% or by about $74,000. Our recurring revenue, which again consists of SaaS licenses, annual maintenance and hosting, increased 6% compared to last year. Our gross profit increased [to] $12.4 million to $13.3 million. Our gross margin decreased to 51% from 52%. This slight decrease is attributable to the impact of lower gross profit margin from the acquisitions that were made in the second half of 2010. Both companies had lower gross margins in the web application development services they provide when compared to our other business units. We did see an improvement in our overall gross margin in Q4 and we expect to continue to see this improvement in 2012.

  • We generated $1.5 million of adjusted EBITDA for 2011 compared to $1.9 million for 2010. Adjusted EBITDA per diluted share was $0.13 compared with $0.17 for the prior year. Our non-GAAP adjusted net income was $400,000 for 2011 compared with $1.2 million for 2010. The reason for this decrease is primarily related to increased R&D investments in 2012. Adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.03 for the year compared with $0.10 for the prior year. We generated $800,000 in cash from operating activities in 2011 compared with $1.5 million for 2010. This decrease in cash generated from operations is primarily related to increased investments in R&D and reduction in our liabilities.

  • Next I'd like to discuss Bridgeline's balance sheet. At September 30, the Company had total assets of $31.4 million with cash of $2.6 million and receivables of $4.3 million. The Company had approximately $4.4 million outstanding under its credit line at September 30. In terms of fiscal 2012 outlook, we expect fiscal 2012 revenues to be in the range of $27 million to 29 million. Our revenue strategy will continue to focus on higher gross margin iAPPS driven opportunities, while discontinuing relationships with lower margin-based customers. And this strategy will reflect the reduction of approximately $2.5 million in fiscal 2012 from existing customer relationships. In addition, we also expect to continue to generate positive non-GAAP income and positive adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2012.

  • At this time I'll turn the conference call back over to Thomas.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • In fiscal 2011, Bridgeline had record revenues of $26.3 million. iAPPS license sales increased 45%. And our new bookings increased 24% to $26 million. As you've heard, we generated $1.5 million of positive EBITDA and we generated $800,000 of cash from operations. We talked about the strength of the balance sheet.

  • So everyone says -- Okay, then why is our public stock price so low and why is our public market cap so low? Public market valuations of competing firms in today's market suggest Bridgeline Digital's market value should be approximately 1 times to 2 times annual sales, or $27 million to $54 million. Today our current market cap is $8 million. If Bridgeline's public market value was $27 million to $54 million, our public stock price would be somewhere between $2 and $4 per share. Significantly much higher than the current $0.65 that it closed at today.

  • Bridgeline's misleading valuation is primarily due to the fact that we are a nano cap stock on the NASDAQ exchange, and Bridgeline's common stock has a very thin share flow with very low daily trading volume on average. In today's market, when public companies have a very thin flow and very low trading volume, then they can be significantly suppressed. And institutional investors are incapable of purchasing their desired position without dramatically increasing the stock price on any given day. Combine low demand with very low trading volume and a nano cap stock like Bridgeline can linger downwards. Over the past six months, we believe Bridgeline's stock has suffered from having far more sellers that have shareholder fatigue from the initial IPO. These are shareholders that purchased Bridgeline stock at its IPO four years ago, or shortly thereafter when our stock price was $5 or $4 per share.

  • We also believe that the laws and rules implemented by the United States Congress and the SEC over the past several years have had a dramatic negative impact on the small public company marketplace. Changes like regulation ATS, Decimalization, Sarbanes-Oxley, Reg NMS have all but eliminated the traditional broker-dealer's ability to thrive. Lawmakers have eliminated the ability to pay analysts directly with investment banking fees, making it impossible for nano cap companies like Bridgeline to attract research support. Today's stock market is dominated by portfolio managers and mega funds that focus on high volume, high frequency, and mega $100 million or greater transactions.

  • The volatility in today's stock market is unprecedented. 200 point swings a day in the Dow Jones Industrial Average has become the norm. And the days of the stockbroker or investment professional recommending individual investors to invest $1,000 to $10,000 in a particular stock are long gone. One size fits all stock trading has become a disaster for most micro caps and nano cap companies. Our lawmakers rush to cut trading spreads and commissions has made large caps even more attractive. But they have abandoned the entrepreneur in the process. I'm sure you will agree that entrepreneurs are the ones that take most of the business risk. They are the ones that drive innovation and they are the ones that create most of the jobs in our country. Clearly, our current market structure is adding to our prolonged recession and unemployment.

  • Grant Thornton Capital Advisory Partners recently reported that IPOs that were sub $50 million inside IPOs fell to just under 20% over the past several years. This is down from over 80% in the '90s. Since 1997, exchanges like the Hong Kong Exchange, Australian Exchange, and the China Exchange are experiencing explosive growth. Since 1997, the American Exchanges have experienced a 45% decline in listed companies.

  • I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal by David Weild. In the article, David said, in the early '70s there was a small technology company that was unprofitable and was only three years old when it went public in an IPO valued at $8 million. This company claimed it created a revolutionary product. After the IPO, the company missed its first product delivery date and investors cut its stock price in half. Talk about risk. And we all know that kind of Company wouldn't even make it to an IPO stage in today's market structure. What was the name of that Company? I'm sure you've heard of Intel. I wonder how many Intels are out there that can't get to the next level due to the current structure of our capital markets.

  • Over the past year, Bridgeline's management has met over a dozen investment bankers, a dozen different analysts, and over 50 portfolio managers. We are consistently told the same thing over and over again. They all agree Bridgeline is significantly under valued. In addition, they all believe Bridgeline has liquidity issues that are floated too small and our public stock is too thinly traded. We are proactively addressing all of these issues. In the meantime, Bridgeline is committed to maximizing the continued development of iAPPS and developing quality solutions for our customers. We will continue to execute our iAPPS distribution initiatives. And we will continue to operate the Company on sound financial basis, increasing the true value for all of our valued shareholders.

  • At this time, we would like to open up the call for questions and answers.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Daniel Zeff, Zeff Capital.

  • - Analyst

  • Can you guys discuss your longer-term plan related to acquisitions, or whether you need to continue to make acquisitions, whether that's part of your strategy. And what size company can you be, organically or with acquisitions, over the next two to four years or so?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • The first part of the question is do we plan any additional acquisitions. We do plan on expanding. When you look at our footprint we have eight offices in North America. We do plan on expanding and having a Bridgeline location somewhere in the West Coast, probably California, and somewhere in the central South, probably Texas. We also will have a Bridgeline location in Europe, most likely in the London area. This last several months, we actually have been starting to sell more and more iAPPS engagements abroad into Europe. So we do have plans of expanding to California, Texas and the UK.

  • We have found with our model, and we've become very good at it, that doing accretive transactions of profitable dot-net web development companies that are anywhere typically from around $2 million to $5 million in size, that could be integrated quickly and easily, help us accelerate our time to market. And accelerate the introduction of iAPPS. And have a delivery team and a sales team that is very knowledgeable with dot-net solutions that get up to speed quickly on the iAPPS product suite. And they really see iAPPS as a different (inaudible) That's why they would merge into us. Historically we have used very little cash in completing these transactions. We've always had a model that uses a little bit of cash, a bigger chunk of earnout paid over a three-year period based on operating performance. And of course some level of Bridgeline stock because we like the idea of them having skin in the game and being owners. Does that address the first part of your question?

  • - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Now, the second part, as far as how big can we grow organically, if you do the math and you look at our model, which we present consistently when we're out in the field, if you have 10 Bridgeline business units, each one is capable of organically growing to $10 million in size. Right now our business units range between $2 million and a little more than $5 million in annual revenue in size. Organically, they all have the addressable markets in their regions to grow to $10 million each or greater. If they sell on average 20 iAPPS engagements a year, by year three they will be approximately $10 million in size. So we organically believe we can grow to the $80 million-plus level as we currently are structured within the next four years.

  • - Analyst

  • Can you talk about margins on that, on those figures?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Our gross margins, we have three components of our revenue. And our gross margins are, on a software licensing sale of iAPPS, whether it's perpetual or SaaS, our gross margins range around 75% to 80%. On the initial services, our gross profit margins are in the low 50%. And on our recurring services, our gross margins are in the high 50%s. From an operating perspective, our operating business model has us, once we're approximately $7.5 million to $8 million a quarter in size, we should be able to generate as a Company 20% in operating income, or 22% to 23% in adjusted EBITDA.

  • - Analyst

  • You're getting pretty close to GAAP profitability. When do you think you're going to cross that threshold?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Obviously we're under-absorbed from an SG&A and R&D perspective. We see that number somewhere between probably $7.2 million to $7.5 million per quarter is where we start generating GAAP profitability.

  • Operator

  • Peter Abrahamson, who is a private investor.

  • - Analyst

  • I've got a few questions here. How many employees did you have at the end of the year, or right now?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • We have approximately 150.

  • - Analyst

  • And then do you have a gross margin expectation range for '12? So if you did 50.5% this year, 52% last year, given a higher revenue mix from this iAPPS business line, do you have a--

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Our policy on guidance, Peter, has been to give, with our annual revenue guidance is. And of course in talking about generating positive EBITDA and positive non-GAAP income. But I think if you take a look at Q4, Q4 gross margin was 52%. \ So you could see it, as we change our mix of a higher concentration of iAPPS revenue, which happens sequentially every quarter, you see our margins improving. So I think we'll continue to see that throughout fiscal '12.

  • - Analyst

  • The previous comment you made on the previous caller, was that 20% EBITDA margins? Is that when a business unit gets to $7.5 million in revenue?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • No, that's once the entire Company does.

  • - Analyst

  • And that's a non-GAAP figure?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • That's an adjusted EBITDA figure, correct. So basically it's EBITDA plus stock comp.

  • - Analyst

  • Do you foresee issuing any stock in 2012 at current levels or levels below $1 a share?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I think right now, we're looking at different strategic alternatives for expansion. We're not fans of issuing stock at this level. Our ownership inside the Company is close to 30% and we don't want to do things that are overly dilutive at this level for sure.

  • - Analyst

  • I appreciate your comments on stock price and valuation. I'm tending to look at it more from a simple perspective. Looking through the SEC filings, there really hasn't been any insider buying over the last year. There was some stock option repricing. But can you comment on those items?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • You also see there's been no insider selling either. I don't think any of us sold any stock since the IPO at all. So there has been insider buying. I personally bought at $3, I bought at $2, I bought at $1.50. But we are restricted based on the rules of insider information when certain things are happening that are deemed material. We obviously had the Magnetic acquisition in play. If that's happening we're restricted. On top of that, for quite some time, we've been working on this very large strategic alliance that we just signed last week. And with that knowledge we're restricted, as well, until we made this announcement today. And I think that we also have our traditional blackout periods. And this is a particularly painful one because it's a very long one when you have your year-end results combined with the first quarter. They go back to back so we're not in a position to purchase any stock as officers and directors until three days after we announce our first quarter results, which will happen sometime in mid February. And then we'll be able to buy. But in the last probably year, we've been bumping into blackouts for one reason or another, whether it was because of earnings announcements or strategic events that were material that were going to happen.

  • - Analyst

  • So you're in a blackout until Q1 earnings now?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Until mid February, yes, sir.

  • - Analyst

  • why were the options repriced? Some of those were just granted within the last year.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We have great people and they're doing some amazing things. And we need to maximize the motivation of all of our employees as much as possible. So we weren't going to let the psychological impact of stock being pushed dramatically downward, which is no control of theirs, to impact their motivation. So we wanted to turn a negative into a positive and keep everybody pushing and taking Bridgeline to the levels we want to take it.

  • - Analyst

  • I understand. It's a delicate balance. Hopefully I'm certain you appreciate maybe an outside shareholder's perspective. We're watching it go down. When we pay for cash at different levels, we don't get a second bite at the apple unless we step in and buy more. So I would just ask that the Board and you be cognizant of that.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Yes, sir. We very much are. We spent a lot of time talking about it. I think, once again, it's in all of our shareholders' best interest to maximize the employee motivation. And it's just crazy where the stock price is and where our market cap is compared to the performance and the things that we're doing with the Company. So we're not trying to take advantage of anything. We truly want to maximize the motivation to drive Bridgeline forward and continue to organically grow iAPPS.

  • - Analyst

  • No, I understand. It's a delicate balancing act but I just wanted to make that observation. Obviously, having a motivated employee base in your business is critical. Okay, I'll jump out of the queue. Best of luck.

  • Operator

  • Walter Ramsley with Walrus Partners.

  • - Analyst

  • I had to jump off for a minute. Maybe you already talked about it, but the deal with the Fortune 500 company, can you go into that a little further?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It's exactly what we said when we talked about it, Walter. It's an alliance, a multi-year alliance agreement with iAPPS. And it's tremendous validation, tremendous distribution. We won't realize any benefit until the September quarter because it's just the nature of our selling lead times and our delivery lead times. So the real financial impact to the Company, we believe, will be in 2013. But we're really excited about it because it's a significant catalyst for iAPPS and for Bridgeline.

  • - Analyst

  • The basic arrangement, are they just reselling the iAPPS to their customers? Or are they packaging it in with other products of their own? What are they doing?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We can't talk about the details of that. We will make a joint announcement with that company sometime in mid 2012.

  • - Analyst

  • And whose idea was it to delay the announcement, yours or theirs?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Come on, Walter. I want to be up on the tree tops announcing it right now.

  • - Analyst

  • Are there going to be startup costs that you will have to incur to get this thing going?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We've already incurred most of them.

  • - Analyst

  • The R&D picked up a little in the quarter. Are you going to continue to ramp that up just on your own or in partnership with these guys? Or is it going to start to level off?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I think we're going to maintain it at the 7% of revenue.

  • - Analyst

  • And I've got a question about the business that you're discarding. How bad were those margins?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • Hi, Walter. They were really under 30%. So, our goal for 2012 is to replace that with higher gross margin iAPPS business.

  • - Analyst

  • And this isn't being critical or anything. I'm just curious. The government, why are their margins lower than commercial margins?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • We're subcontracting. It's a unique skill set and they're highly compensated people. And then it also gets down to the rate that we have as a subcontractor.

  • - Analyst

  • And maybe I got it mixed up but I had it in my head that you were getting rid of like $1.5 million of government business, but then on the script I heard $2.5 million in total that you were ditching. Is that correct?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • That's correct. We have another $1 million worth of customers that have been hurt by the economy. One of them was about $750,000 that lost all of its funding.

  • - Analyst

  • You mentioned that the margins are likely to improve next year, or actually in the current fiscal year. Is that due to the higher composition of the license sales or is just service margins going to go up too?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • Walter, it's a combination of really both. So it's selling more licenses, which is at a much higher margin, as well as replacing the lower gross margin business we talked about with iAPPS related service, which is closer to 50% to 55%.

  • - Analyst

  • And this is just a ballpark way of looking at it, but in the press release, it looked like anyway, you were getting rid of the $1.5 million of government business and hoping to replace that with license sales. So does that mean that you guys have a pretty good expectation of increasing your license sales by $1.5 million in the fiscal 2012?

  • - SVP, CAO

  • It's iAPPS sales, so it's the engagement Thomas mentioned, $365,000 over a couple years. But there's a couple different components to that. There's a service piece as well as the license. So when we say iAPPS related revenue, it's not strictly licenses. It's the license as well as the services related to the deployment of that license.

  • - Analyst

  • So even though it's a secret who the partner is, what do you think the revenue potential is there?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • It's tough to quantify. I think until we actually really start getting in motion with this, which we're starting to now, it's difficult to quantify. But I think by 2013 it could be low eight digits.

  • - Analyst

  • I'm trying to add that up. That sounds like a lot. And the margins, it would be everything, right? Software, licenses, the works?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Our margins would maintain, Walter. There's no margin erosion at all with this partnership.

  • - Analyst

  • And just out of curiosity, are there any escape clauses for them or you to break the deal?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • I think there are, in any agreement, there's always a reason to terminate. And of course this agreement has very long windows for termination only because our engagements are long periods of time, as well. But I think at the end of the day, when partnerships are working, which ours has been because we've been with this particular company shoulder to shoulder for half a year now, and making R&D investments towards this relationship, as well, I think at the end of the day, if the relationship and expectations are being met, then that's what it's all about, regardless of any agreement that's in place. But we're feeling really good that this is a great relationship, a tremendous amount of value add on both ends, and they have the distribution and brand name to really be a huge catalyst for us.

  • - Analyst

  • So is this an exclusive? Or can you do it again?

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • We can't talk about those kind of terms, Walter.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Mr. Massie, I'm showing no additional questioners in the queue at this time. I'd like to turn the program back over to you.

  • - Chairman, President, CEO

  • Thank you, Hughie. Thank you everybody for joining us today. Basically to summarize, we remain laser focused on continuing the iAPPS organic growth. iAPPS is providing Bridgeline with a strong customer traction model with excellent visibility. We continue to have a strong pipeline, and we continue to focus on our customer base. We believe we have a strong operating leverage in our model, as well, as we grow. And we're very excited about 2012 and beyond. We want to wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may now all disconnect.