Climb Global Solutions Inc (CLMB) 2009 Q2 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Wayside Technology Group conference call.

  • At this time all protestants are in a listen-only mode.

  • Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time.

  • (Operator Instructions).

  • As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference call may be recorded.

  • I would now like to introduce you host for today's conference, Ms.

  • Natalie Turner.

  • Ms.

  • Turner, you may begin at this time.

  • Natalie Turner - IR, Marketing Executive

  • Thank you, and good morning everyone.

  • Welcome to Wayside Technology's second quarter 2009 earnings call.

  • Before turning the call over to Simon Nynens, the company's Chairman and CEO, I will dispense with the customary cautionary language and comment about the webcast for the signings call.

  • We released earnings for the second quarter at approximately 5 PM Eastern Time Thursday, July 30, 2009.

  • The earnings release is available at the company's investor relations website at WaysideTechnology.com.

  • Today's call, including all questions and answers, is being webcast live and can be accessed via the website, earnings.com.

  • A rebroadcast of this call will be available at WaysideTechnology.com.

  • This conference call and the associated webcast contain time sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, July 31, 2009.

  • A detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties are discussed in our Forms 10-Q and also in greater detail and our Forms 10-K.

  • Wayside Technology Group, Inc., sees no obligation to update and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements.

  • Now I would like to turn the call over to Simon.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Good morning everyone.

  • We delivered solid results this quarter, considering the continued recessionary business climate.

  • April and May were actually good months.

  • June was not as strong, and the main reason for this was that we did not have the typical end-of-quarter boost in the last two weeks.

  • Excluding VMware, our consolidated sales would have actually increased 3%, a strong sign of the strength of the software vendors we represent.

  • Kevin will go into the detailed results, but I would like to make the following remarks regarding our subsidiaries.

  • Let's start with Lifeboat.

  • Many of our distribution competitors continue their ultra-low pricing strategies for any and all lines that they carry in order to grab revenue without really adding value to the distribution of software.

  • In order to make up for these ultra-low or zero margins, they continue to increase freight charges, marketing, support, and all kinds of other charges to their customers as well as vendors.

  • While we firmly believe that this will not work for them as a long-term strategy, their actions could hurt our profitability in the short term.

  • We continue to monitor this development closely.

  • It is important to mention that we not only manage our operations closely in terms of revenue and gross margins but also in terms of measuring the superior service we provide to software publishers and our customers.

  • We believe that the best way to counter these competitive threats is to continue to invest in adding new lines and providing excellent service to our publisher partners.

  • We have the tools in place to add more publishers, including a great team and a great IT infrastructure.

  • We firmly believe that this is the time to invest in our future growth by reaching out to and recruiting new software publishers.

  • Many software publishers are looking for a distributor that can truly act as an extension of their internal sales and marketing organization.

  • And that's exactly who we are.

  • Although we cannot influence the larger economic forces that are currently at work, we do look forward towards the remainder of 2009 with great confidence in our team.

  • Regarding our Programmer's segment, Programmer's Paradise and TechXtend performed well, as gross profit increased by 6%.

  • This represents a solid performance, especially as compared to our competition.

  • We are dedicated, knowledgeable, and flexible.

  • We play a key role when it comes to closing sales deals for many of our software partners.

  • We also continue to invest in financing long-term receivables, as these generate a better rate of return versus our investments in government securities.

  • Talking about cash, cash and cash equivalents amounted to $16.5 million as per the end of the quarter, representing 68% of our equity at that date.

  • A few investors have asked this quarter about our cash position and have also raised a question of why not pay out a one-time large cash dividend.

  • As we are all aware, cash is king right now in this environment, and it would be very hard for a company of our size to raise cash should we need it.

  • The cash position enables us to handle large finance deals, ensure that we have sufficient cash, cash on hand for the quarterly dividends, and also enables us to consider acquisitions should we find a good company that is well-managed yet has distressed ownership.

  • Our net income in the second quarter of '09 was $0.18 per share, and we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share, again, a sign of our strong financials.

  • We continue to have one of the most conservative balance sheets as a public company, and we do not have a current need for that.

  • Kevin Scull will now report on the financial numbers.

  • Kevin?

  • Kevin Scull - VP and Chief Accounting Officer

  • Thank you, Simon, and good morning everyone.

  • I will discuss our second quarter financial results on a companywide basis as well as per segment.

  • Net sales were $37.0 million compared to $48.1 million last year.

  • Sales for our Programmer's Paradise segment were $12.0 million compared to $13.1 million last year, representing and 8% decrease.

  • This decrease was primarily due to a shift in mix of order size as we sold more of our smaller, specialized software lines, which typically carry higher margins.

  • Sales for our Lifeboat segment were $25 million compared to $35 million last year, representing a 28% decrease.

  • The decrease in net sales for our Lifeboat segment was due to a decrease in VMware sales.

  • Lifeboat ceased distributing VMware as of October 1, 2008.

  • Q2 2008 VMware label distribution sales were $11.7 million compared with no VMware distribution sales in the current quarter.

  • Excluding VMware sales, Lifeboat sales increased by $1.7 million or 7% compared to the prior year.

  • Gross profit was number $4.1 million compared to $4.3 million last year.

  • Gross profit as a percentage of net sales was 11.0% compared to 8.9% last year point.

  • The increase in gross profit margin as a percentage of net sales was primarily caused by the shift in product mix and the fact that we ceased distributing VMware, which carried lower margins.

  • Gross profit for our Programmer's Paradise segment was $1.6 million compared to $1.5 million last year, representing a 6% increase, as we sold more specialized software with higher margins.

  • Gross profit for our Lifeboat segment was $2.5 million compared to $2.8 million last year, representing a 13% decrease.

  • The decrease in gross profit was due to lower sales lines.

  • Gross profit margin as a percentage of sales for our Programmer's Paradise segment was 12.9% compared to 11.2% last year.

  • Gross profit margin as a percentage of our sales for our Lifeboat segment was 10.1% compared to 8.1% last year.

  • Total selling, general and administrative, SG&A, expenses were $2.9 million compared to $3.1 million last year.

  • As a percentage of sales, SG&A expenses were 7.9% compared to 6.4% last year.

  • Direct selling costs for the second quarter of 2009 were $1.4 million compared to $1.5 million last year.

  • Our net income amounted to $790,000 compared to $823,000 last year.

  • As a percentage of sales our net income was 2.1% compared to 1.7% last year.

  • On a fully diluted basis, our earnings per share was $0.18 for both the current and prior year.

  • Now moving on to the balance sheet.

  • Compared to our year-end balance sheet, the following accounts had significant fluctuations.

  • Cash and marketable securities decreased by $2.3 million to $16.5 million.

  • Some of the large uses of cash during the year were corporate tax payments of $1.2 million and dividends of $1.4 million.

  • Accounts receivable increased by $4.1 million from the year end due to the timing of payments from some of our larger customers.

  • Our book value per share is $5.08 and equity now stands at $24.2 million, and cash and marketable securities make up 68% of this balance.

  • This concludes my remarks.

  • Simon, back to you.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Thank you.

  • Operator, we can now open the Q&A session.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions).

  • Bert Boksen, Eagle Asset Management.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • A couple of questions.

  • Did you buy back any stock during the quarter?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • No, we did not.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • That's two quarters in a row.

  • Is there any reason given that large cash position and you're paying out an 8% dividend, that you've been so conservative with the buyback?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • No.

  • Our buyback is open.

  • It mostly depends on our daily volume.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • So we are actively looking.

  • We set a price range, and Kevin is looking into that, even getting more aggressive maybe in the third quarter in terms of price, upping the price in terms of the shares that we buy back.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Because it's certainly (multiple speakers)

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • But we are actively looking for a large block of shares, so --

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Well, occasionally it doesn't trade very well, but it does trade occasionally during the quarter.

  • Second question, a couple of years ago -- you can correct me on the timing -- it seemed like you talked about using this cash to make an acquisition, which I think, if you made the right one, all shareholders would applaud.

  • Could you take us through what's been going on there?

  • It would seem like, given the events of the last year, it would be an opportune time to buy something.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • We started looking just prior to the market decline.

  • So in hindsight, there were a couple of deals that we looked at and we got fairly close, but it was always at the terms of valuation.

  • I thought it was -- the valuation was too high and too the multiples were too high and the valuation was too expensive for us to acquire at that time.

  • And with hindsight, it was a very good decision because right now, those valuations have gone down.

  • What I want to make sure of -- and we hired an investment banker.

  • That investment banker is still with us.

  • We continue to review those deals.

  • I have to make sure that we -- we are excited about the basis of our company, and that is software distribution and reselling and consultancy to software, so I want to make sure that we stay in those sectors.

  • A lot of these companies that we have looked at have either a consultancy -- but not consultancy that we are familiar with -- or they have a distribution arm, but the distribution of that -- the main distribution is hardware.

  • So I want to make sure that we stay close to what we know because I've seen many acquisitions gone wrong for that reason, that you are not familiar with the company that you buy.

  • So we've been kind of conservative there as well in terms of reviewing acquisition possibilities

  • And there are a couple of companies that we're looking at right now, as we have over the past, but I want to make sure that we don't jump into this as a reason to say, okay, now this is going to be our -- the saving grace.

  • We've been doing well.

  • We focused heavily on adding the lines in terms of distribution.

  • That's working well.

  • The basis of our company is doing well, so I continue to look at acquisitions that might make sense.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • With these VMware comparisons on your revenue line, I would think -- am I accurate in saying you have two more quarters of negative VMware comparisons, and then that should go away over the next year?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Actually that's a good question because in Q3 of 2008 -- in Q2 of 2008 the distribution sales were $11.7 million.

  • In the third quarter of 2008, distribution sales were $8.2 million.

  • So again, comparing to Q3 of this year, there will be $8.2 million less VMware sales.

  • Now in Q4 there was -- the remainder of that distribution business was $200,000.

  • So you basically have one more quarter that's really impacted by VMware.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Okay.

  • So then we should be seeing apples to apple revenue comparisons, or pretty close to that?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Correct.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • You talked about a good April and May and then not the sell-through you would have liked at the end of June.

  • Is that trend continued through July?

  • Or is it more of a normal seasonal July?

  • Can you give us some insight on -- I know you don't make forecasts or projections, but insight about the general tone of business, have we seen some improvement?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • The year -- we're going in uncharted waters when it comes to that, because January and February were very light, as I said in the first conference call.

  • We basically made our quarter due to the last two weeks of that quarter, as I stated in the first conference for first quarter.

  • However, April was up versus last year.

  • And May was up significantly over last year.

  • So we thought, okay, we've turned a quarter and we're going to go up.

  • Very surprised by that, by the way, because we had included VMware.

  • Now, we knew that June was impacted heavily by the rebates received and by the large VMware deals that we did last year.

  • But still, I would have liked to see a stronger June.

  • Normally we have those finance deals.

  • And you can see that in the balance sheet as well, that the long-term receivables have not shown that strong growth.

  • We did not see those typical end of the quarter buzz that's normally around the company in the last -- especially in the last two weeks.

  • So that did not happen.

  • So June was not as strong as last year.

  • Having that said, I'm still very pleased with the overall performance of the company in the second quarter.

  • July is slow so far.

  • But again, there's a couple of large deals that could make or break August, and again, September is really the month for us, as it was last year.

  • It's really difficult to state whether we see the trend.

  • I cannot see a trend.

  • Some of our software publishers have hit bottom, according to them, in Q4 or Q1.

  • Some of them have had a worst Q2 that they have.

  • So it's -- and it doesn't relate to order size or kind of sector of the industry, large deals, small deals.

  • We've looked at it every single angle, and it's kind of unknown why certain companies are down in the second quarter versus the first quarter or why other companies are up in the second quarter.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Could you give us some -- your account receivables have been growing.

  • And actually, by plan.

  • But can you give us some comfort that these are good receivables?

  • What's the dating?

  • Do you have a --?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • Sure.

  • So the accounts receivable, especially compared to the end of the year, have grow significantly.

  • And the main reason for that is some of our larger -- largest customers at the end of the year prepaid us large sums of outstanding receivables.

  • The main reason for that was internal on their end, reasons to pay us early; I think it's balance sheet reasons on their end.

  • But that skews the balance.

  • Now, also our large customers have viewed their payable -- their receivables as well, so the payment terms used to be 35, 40 days.

  • Now they are closer to 60 days.

  • These are large companies, well-established.

  • What I was worried about is that the smaller customers, basically our aging started to deteriorate.

  • That has not happened.

  • We were very worried about that because with the overall economy in decline, we wanted to make sure that our risk was not significantly increasing.

  • We [definitely] put extra resources on calling the outstanding receivables that were over-due.

  • Actually our aging has not deteriorated at all.

  • If anything, I think improved for smaller balances compared to the end of the year.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • We manage that on a weekly basis.

  • We all get together, review every single line and come up with a plan of action for that week.

  • You have to take into account too the accounts receivable long-term that are on the balance sheet.

  • So basically, anything that is due within one year, even the one-year-- that could be due at 11 months, one of those large finance deals will then be reclassified to accounts receivable net.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Okay.

  • Final question, and I will let other people jump on.

  • If you strip out the cash, your company -- you are trading for -- I don't know -- five times earnings, give or take.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • Low.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Kind of a -- in my mind, giving your balance sheet and your multiple, a really -- 8% yield, kind of a stupid valuation.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • I agree.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • And then I look back, and I look at the five-year chart just to be fair, and the stock has done nothing in terms of rewarding investors.

  • Are you going to get out and try to -- a couple of years ago you kind of -- we spoke about your getting out more, getting some visibility, maybe getting some analyst coverage.

  • What's going on on that side?

  • A cheap stock helps nobody.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Right.

  • Absolutely true.

  • We've talked to our investment bankers about this.

  • I talked too about the companies in New York.

  • Those investor conferences that we can go to, everybody is saying they have zero value.

  • What people do right now is sitting behind their computers running the multiples and then coming up with the companies that they want to invest in.

  • We are definitely popping up on a lot of screens.

  • I can't help market valuations.

  • All I know is that we, according to the rest of the market, are cheap stock.

  • I think our performance and our execution over the next couple of years will be what drives us.

  • Now, compared to our competitors, last year, we went down 10%.

  • Our nearest competitor went down more than 30%.

  • So I want to make sure that, yes, you can look at the five-year chart (multiple speakers)

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • But you guys haven't rebounded like a lot of stocks did from the -- what can I say.

  • You rebounded a little bit, but you certainly didn't rebound to like what I would consider a reasonable valuation.

  • Even some of the distributors that you are saying are losing money with their strategies are up sharply since those March lows.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • And it's speculation.

  • That's what it is.

  • And I think we have less speculators in our stock, and I think the main reason for that is that it's because it's not -- the trading volume is not up.

  • So there's a couple of different things that we can do.

  • You can try to increase the trading volumes, which is what we are doing.

  • But we also try to get our story out there, but to hire a PR firm for us that will get us to investor conferences where there's 20 local investors is not going to do it for us.

  • And I personally have -- large stock companies, General Electric has not rebounded.

  • I've invested money in them, and that definitely didn't go where I wanted it to go.

  • But they haven't rebounded either.

  • And I think everybody is carrying this problem.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Well, some of them are rebounded.

  • I would just suggest that if you at least had one -- not a PR firm -- that you pay for one independent brokerage report out on the company, it would be helpful.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Oh, I agree.

  • I agree.

  • We are definitely working on that.

  • I agree.

  • It's hard to get that.

  • Bert Boksen - Analyst

  • All right.

  • I will let other people ask questions.

  • Thank you, Simon.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Thank you sir.

  • Have a good weekend.

  • Operator

  • Jim Stone, PSK Advisors.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Good morning Simon.

  • Great quarter.

  • Trying to understand the softness in the June quarter.

  • What do you think is behind it?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Actually, the June quarter was okay because of April and May.

  • It was mostly the deals at the end of the quarter that did not happen.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Right.

  • That's what I'm trying to understand.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Hard for us to understand.

  • Shawn?

  • Shawn Giordano is in charge of our Programmer's Paradise and TechXtend.

  • Shawn Giordano - VP of Sales, Programmer's Paradise and TechXtend

  • I think what you are seeing now is on the larger types of transactions, those six-figure deals and above, they are scrutinized at much more levels with the organization as far as approvals are concerned.

  • It's not a time where people are buying software based on wants.

  • They have to be true business value acquisitions.

  • So we are seeing some pressures there and longer approval cycles on deals.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • When you look at the shortfall or the weakness of the last two weeks, was it mostly due to these large accounts?

  • Or was it due to something else?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • No, it was all large accounts.

  • It was all the large deals that did not happen.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • So it's basically they are just putting the screws on the large buys is what you are saying?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • But I would have expected that as well in the first quarter, to be honest with you.

  • And I think some of those deals actually maybe were going to happen in January.

  • They just got pushed back I guess till the end of March.

  • And we were kind of hoping for the same thing in Q2, but it did not happen.

  • But again, that's okay because our overall gross profit was up in Programmer's Paradise and TechXtend.

  • 6% was up point so (multiple speakers)

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • No.

  • The gross -- it was good to see the gross margins improve because it's always been your strategy to improve it, but it was hard to see it in the results.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Yes.

  • Exactly.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • My thought on that end of June was either -- two things, that the large companies were putting the screws on, or the competition just needed sales and was getting even more violent in the last and offering too good of a deal.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Some of that actually business is going direct as the software publishers -- and again, our largest competitors are the direct sales forces of software publishers.

  • And as they are getting -- facing declining revenues, they absolutely are looking at taking deals directly.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • And the strength in the early part of the quarter, any -- was that -- do you think mostly then pent-up demand?

  • Or was there something really happening fundamentally underneath?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • No, I think it was pent-up demand, and again, it was the smaller orders that came in, and I think it's our continued focus too on these lines, and not a lot of resellers nor distributors are focusing on the smaller lines because they are scrambling to get the large deals in and that we really benefited from that.

  • And we'll continue to benefit from that.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • As you look at, again, the June quarter sales, can you give us some sort of a feel of how much of that growth might be due to new lines that you've been carrying for less than a year?

  • Or some other similar type of metric?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Well again, if you look at excluding VMware, sales would have actually increased 3%.

  • That's really good growth in terms of (multiple speakers)

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • I understand.

  • And what I'm trying to understand is how much of that is in older line and how much is due to the fact that you are just broadening the line and carrying more products?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • There's definitely a high percentage of that growth is due to our new lines.

  • Absolutely.

  • The reason that we are not going into those details is because we actually have press releases when it comes to our new lines, and I don't want our competition to look into these lines and saying, well, those are great growth lines.

  • But definitely a high percentage of that increase is due to new lines, as well as lines that we have worked with over time and really started to grow out for them right now.

  • There's some really strong lines in there that are really taking off for the last two years, I would say.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • How about (multiple speakers)

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • But we monitor -- internally we monitor that.

  • We have sales reports by publisher every week, every month that we focus on heavily.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • And what about new lines taken on or new products from old vendors taken on during the last quarter?

  • Can you comment on roughly how -- what that activity was and how it compares?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Oh sure.

  • Yes.

  • We signed on five software publishers in the last quarter.

  • And in addition we've also signed for instant extensions.

  • So for a couple of them, we now are their distributor in Latin America.

  • We only had North America.

  • So we added Latin America, or we added another territory for them.

  • We look forward to Q3 with a strong pipeline in terms of new software publishers that we sign on.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • And in terms of that number of five, how does that compare with what happened in the first quarter?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • It was less than in the first quarter, but it was different lines as well, so --

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Would the new lines that you've added, would you say you'd get the same type of sales out of those that you (technical difficulty) of say out of lines that you've added a year ago and have now sort of matured into your marketplace?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • I think it always takes -- it's hard to say that.

  • Some companies are really taking off, and that technology really takes off.

  • And other companies look very promising, and after the first three or six months, their sales are not taking off -- for whatever reason.

  • But again (multiple speakers)

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • I'm not sure I got my question across right.

  • Let me retry it.

  • I'm saying, if -- and I'm going to pick numbers off the wall, because obviously you don't forecast and (multiple speakers)

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • We forecast.

  • We just don't share.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • But if let's say a year ago you added five lines and those five lines added $100,000 to the June quarter sales, a year from now would you expect that the five you added in the last quarter, would they add the same amount, i.e., the $100,000?

  • More?

  • Or less?

  • I'm just trying to get a feeling for the strength of those lines and what you think (multiple speakers) their [potential] is.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • We think they're going to at least do as good as the previous lines that we signed on.

  • Yes.

  • We're very excited about the partners that we signed on.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Dan, do you want to add -- Dan Jamieson, our (multiple speakers)

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • Yes.

  • Thanks.

  • Does a caveat that.

  • One of the things that we are seeing right now in this interesting climate that we are in is that sales cycles invariably are being drawn out and extended.

  • So that -- to Simon's point, that impacts the traction that we are able to achieve in an immediate sense within the channel.

  • And due to the third-party nature of what we are doing in distribution, what LIFO does, and I'm really proud of it, is we really do a good job of inculcating the opportunity to our resellers and in enabling our resellers.

  • But then it looks like now what we are seeing is a little more time is taking place and sell cycles move out a little bit.

  • So it may not parallel to the time frame exactly, but I'm cautiously optimistic that that will occur.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • But I'm just trying to get a feel of -- are you bringing on lines at least that have the same potential?

  • Do you have characteristic or -- at some point you've got to exhaust the big guys and go down to smaller guys.

  • And I just wondering where you are on that (multiple speakers)

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • I just want to make sure that we state this clearly.

  • As other people call it -- we don't call it small.

  • We call it specialized vendors.

  • That is our bread and butter.

  • We did not want the large (multiple speakers)

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • No.

  • I understand (multiple speakers)

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • -- broad lines.

  • That is not our focus.

  • We are focusing on specialized lines with the added service.

  • But to your point, is that all -- have we covered the market there?

  • Absolutely not.

  • There is enormous potential for us to grow -- enormous.

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • And just to add to that, one of the things -- one of the many things I love about our company is that we are -- at Lifeboat we are incubators.

  • We are early adopters.

  • And from an entrepreneurial sense, that's how we approach our partnerships.

  • And one of the things we do really well is customize our approach to each individual vendor.

  • For VMware, for example, going back a decade ago, they were just inchoate.

  • It was there in their genesis, and they were a startup.

  • And we were able to move them into a two-tier model, and we had a great run with them for 10 years and also signed up 20-plus third-party tool vendors around that virtualization practice.

  • So for us, to Simon's point, we really are in it for the long term.

  • That's how we base our partnerships.

  • We base them on a foundation of integrity, and we are really only interested in establishing and creating and sustaining long-term, mutually profitable partnerships that are going to be there for the long run.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Do you distribute any SPSS products?

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • You know we have.

  • We've had a great relationship with SPSS over the years, their products, etc.

  • And I saw IBM recently bought them, but that's one of our legacy strengths at Lifeboat.

  • We are a very engineering friendly company.

  • So we historically, in addition to SPSS, we've worked in a long-term sense with Micro Focus, who just acquired the Compuware testing tools, and we've managed to migrate that business model into what we are doing with those folks.

  • But also in that science and math space, we do -- Wolfram Research comes to mind.

  • Systat.

  • So one of the great strengths of Lifeboat is that we really become a true extension of our vendor partners.

  • For all intents and purposes, when our resellers call Lifeboat, we are that -- we are the vendor we represent.

  • And that's our differentiator from the broad lines, who are great companies in their own right, but our differentiator is we focus on software and we are knowledgeable and trained in the software that we distribute.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • And your feeling at the moment, do you think the acquisition will help you in terms of that maybe IBM will give you more products to distribute?

  • Or it will hurt you in that IBM would bring it internal?

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • Well, we will see.

  • I mean, it's open to discussion right now, and we are working on that right now.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • But I know with the acquisition of Compuware by Micro Focus, that's already -- we've already completed that, and Simon alluded to it earlier with one of the five relationships during the quarter.

  • And we have a long-standing partnership with those testing tools.

  • It goes back in a legacy since to when they were Numega tools.

  • Then Compuware bought them, and now Micro Focus has them.

  • So we will continue to sell those and drive those into our customer base.

  • Jim Stone - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Thank you.

  • Keep up the good work.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Thank you sir.

  • Have a good weekend.

  • Operator

  • Peter Lux, private investor.

  • Peter Lux - Private Investor

  • Just one question and -- which -- to sort of piggyback on what you guys said.

  • You seem to be excited about these new partnerships and products.

  • I just want to know, and this is really a good question for the growth of the future.

  • How big is the universe out there of potential new products that would -- that you'd be able to market with the kind of margins that we've seen in the last quarter?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • I would say at least $2 billion plus.

  • It's a huge market out there in terms of growth opportunity for us.

  • Dan Jamieson - VP and General Manager, Lifeboat Distribution

  • Yes.

  • I think Peter, too, to just kind of go down into that, we have to remember for our specialty, Simon talked about it earlier -- from our standpoint, we are going to our strengths, which is specializing in complex tools and being able to support those tools out into the channel to our partners.

  • So that's our value proposition.

  • And that's what we're known for across the company.

  • Peter Lux - Private Investor

  • So if in effect you to add these new publishers, what would -- can you remain -- do you need to add headcount?

  • Or is the headcount sufficient to handle all -- what you have now?

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • In January and February, all the mainstream distributors restructured their sales force, laid-off people.

  • A lot of resellers laid off people immediately.

  • And I think one of the hurdles that they will face if they turn around and start growing again is the fact that they have to retrain new people, the morale has been impacted.

  • We did not have a large restructuring here at this company.

  • We did not did that.

  • We did not lay off large amounts of people here.

  • And the reason for that is because we were excited about this new prospect and we were thinking about the long term.

  • And that's still the case.

  • Now I'm not going to hire five people on two new lines that we bring in.

  • We due this -- we review it on a weekly basis, review the number of orders per sales rep and review -- should we add?

  • Should we go down?

  • Typically, I don't want to hire somebody just to try things out.

  • That's somebody's livelihood that we talk about.

  • When we hire somebody, we better make very sure that we can keep this person on for as long as we can.

  • And that's our philosophy -- a long-term company, and that also comes when it comes to headcount.

  • We're not a company that will hire 10 people to see what happens and then lay off people that don't make it.

  • That's not our philosophy.

  • People here are here long-term.

  • Peter Lux - Private Investor

  • Okay.

  • Good job.

  • And see down the road.

  • Operator

  • I'm showing no further questions at this time, sir.

  • Simon Nynens - Chairman, President and CEO

  • Thank you.

  • I appreciate everybody's support, and we look forward to talking to you in the third quarter.

  • Operator

  • Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference.

  • This concludes our program for today.

  • You may all disconnect.

  • And have a wonderful day.