Nutanix Inc (NTNX) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Nutanix Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now turn the conference to your host, Mr. Rich Valera, Nutanix VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

感謝您的支持，歡迎參加 Nutanix 2023 年第三季度收益電話會議。此時，所有參與者都處於只聽模式。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，今天的通話正在錄音中。我現在將會議轉交給你的主持人，Nutanix 投資者關係副總裁 Rich Valera 先生。請繼續，先生。

Good afternoon, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss the results of our third quarter of 2023. Joining me today are Rajiv Ramaswami, Nutanix's President and CEO, and Rukmini Sivaraman, Nutanix's CFO. After the market closed today, Nutanix issued a press release announcing financial results for its fiscal third quarter of 2023. If you'd like to read the release, please hit the press releases section of our IR website. We also filed our 10-Q for our second quarter of fiscal 2023, which is available on the SEC's website.

下午好，歡迎參加今天的電話會議，討論我們 2023 年第三季度的結果。今天和我一起的有 Nutanix 總裁兼首席執行官 Rajiv Ramaswami 和 Nutanix 首席財務官 Rukmini Sivaraman。今天收市後，Nutanix 發布了一份新聞稿，公佈了其 2023 財年第三季度的財務業績。如果您想閱讀該新聞稿，請訪問我們 IR 網站的新聞稿部分。我們還提交了 2023 財年第二季度的 10-Q，可在 SEC 網站上查閱。

During today's call, management will make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our business plans, strategies, initiatives, vision, objectives and outlook, including our financial guidance as well as our ability to execute there on successfully and in timely manner and the benefits and impact thereof on our business, operations and financial results. Our plans to implement recommendations in our remedial measures following the completion of the Audit Committee investigation. Our expectations and estimates for the resolution of the third-party sulfur usage matter that was the subject of the investigation, including its estimated impact on our financial statements and guidance. Our financial performance and targets and use of new or different performance metrics in future periods, expectations regarding profitability, our competitive position and market opportunity, the timing and impact of our currency and future business model transitions, in fact, describing our growth macroeconomic, geopolitical and industry trends, including global supply chain challenges.

在今天的電話會議上，管理層將做出前瞻性陳述，包括關於我們的業務計劃、戰略、舉措、願景、目標和前景的陳述，包括我們的財務指導以及我們成功及時地執行這些指導的能力以及收益及其對我們的業務、運營和財務業績的影響。我們計劃在審計委員會調查完成後實施補救措施中的建議。我們對作為調查對象的第三方硫使用問題的解決方案的預期和估計，包括其對我們財務報表和指導的估計影響。我們的財務業績和目標以及在未來期間使用新的或不同的業績指標、對盈利能力的預期、我們的競爭地位和市場機會、我們的貨幣和未來商業模式轉型的時機和影響，實際上描述了我們的增長宏觀經濟、地緣政治和行業趨勢，包括全球供應鏈挑戰。

These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those anticipated by these statements. For a more detailed description of these and other risks and uncertainties, please refer to our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K in the fiscal year ended July 31, 2022, and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q fiscal quarters ended October 31, 2022 and January 31, 2023, as well as our earnings press release issued today. These forward-looking statements apply as of today, and we undertake no obligation to revise these statements after this call. As a result, you should not rely on them as representing our views in the future.

這些前瞻性陳述涉及風險和不確定性，其中一些是我們無法控制的，可能導致實際結果與這些陳述預期的結果存在重大差異和不利。有關這些及其他風險和不確定性的更詳細描述，請參閱我們提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件，包括我們截至 2022 年 7 月 31 日的財政年度的 10-K 表格年度報告，以及我們關於 10-Q 財政季度表格的季度報告截至 2022 年 10 月 31 日和 2023 年 1 月 31 日，以及我們今天發布的收益新聞稿。這些前瞻性陳述從今天開始適用，我們不承擔在本次電話會議後修改這些陳述的義務。因此，您以後不應依賴它們來代表我們的觀點。

Please note, unless otherwise specifically referenced, all financial measures we use on today's call, except for revenue are expressed on a non-GAAP basis and have been adjusted to exclude certain charges. We have provided the extent available reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures on our IR website and in our earnings press release. Lastly, Nutanix will be holding its 2023 Investor Day in New York City on September 26. Please see our earnings press release for registration information. Nutanix will also be appearing at the NASDAQ Investor Conference in London on June 13, and we hope to see some of you there.

請注意，除非另有特別說明，否則我們在今天的電話會議上使用的所有財務指標（收入除外）均以非公認會計準則為基礎表示，並已進行調整以排除某些費用。我們已在我們的 IR 網站和收益新聞稿中提供了這些非 GAAP 財務措施與 GAAP 財務措施的可用調節範圍。最後，Nutanix 將於 9 月 26 日在紐約市舉辦 2023 年投資者日活動。請參閱我們的收益新聞稿了解註冊信息。 Nutanix 也將出席 6 月 13 日在倫敦舉行的納斯達克投資者大會，我們希望能在場見到你們中的一些人。

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Rajiv. Rajiv?

有了這個，我會把電話轉給拉吉夫。拉吉夫？

Thank you, Rich, and good afternoon, everyone. Against an uncertain macro backdrop, we delivered a solid third quarter with results that came in ahead of our guidance and saw continued strong performance in our renewables business. With respect to the macro backdrop, in our third quarter we continued to see businesses prioritizing their digital transformation and data center modernization initiatives with a strong focus on total cost of ownership which plays to the strength of our platform. However, we also continue to see some increased inspection of deals by customers, which we believe is related to the more uncertain macro backdrop. And this is driving a modest elongation in sales cycles. We've considered this dynamic in our outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year.

謝謝 Rich，大家下午好。在不確定的宏觀背景下，我們在第三季度取得了穩健的業績，其業績超出了我們的指引，並且我們的可再生能源業務表現持續強勁。關於宏觀背景，在我們的第三季度，我們繼續看到企業優先考慮其數字化轉型和數據中心現代化計劃，重點關注總擁有成本，這發揮了我們平台的優勢。然而，我們也繼續看到客戶對交易的檢查有所增加，我們認為這與更加不確定的宏觀背景有關。這推動了銷售週期的適度延長。我們在本財年剩餘時間的展望中考慮了這種動態。

Supply chain constraints with our server partners are here to have normalized at this point and are now having minimal impact on our business. In conjunction with the release of our fiscal third quarter earnings tonight, we also announced the conclusion of the Audit Committee investigation related to third-party software usage and the subsequent filing of our 10-Q for our fiscal second quarter. As a result of this process, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. And are working on remedial measures to address the identified weakness and help prevent this from happening again. We have also held the responsible employees accountable. This matter had no material impact on our historical financials and we believe it will have minimal impact going forward. While Rukmini will provide more details, we're pleased the investigation has been completed.

我們的服務器合作夥伴的供應鏈限制在這一點上已經正常化，現在對我們的業務影響最小。結合我們今晚發布的第三財季收益，我們還宣布了審計委員會對第三方軟件使用情況的調查結論，以及隨後提交的第二財季 10-Q 報告。作為這一過程的結果，我們發現了我們對財務報告的內部控制存在重大缺陷。並且正在製定補救措施來解決已發現的弱點，並幫助防止這種情況再次發生。我們還追究了責任員工的責任。這件事對我們的歷史財務狀況沒有重大影響，我們相信它對未來的影響微乎其微。雖然 Rukmini 將提供更多細節，但我們很高興調查已經完成。

Taking a closer look at the third quarter, we delivered solid top line growth, including 17% year-over-year ACV billings growth driven by continued strong performance of our renewals business. Our ongoing focus on expense management helped us generate $42 million of free cash flow. Continuing our strong year-to-date free cash flow performance. Overall, I'm pleased with our financial performance in the third quarter. Our third quarter results reflect the value new and existing customers are seeing in both our core cloud platform and our solutions-based portfolio as they look to modernize while carefully managing their costs.

仔細觀察第三季度，我們實現了穩健的收入增長，包括在續訂業務持續強勁表現的推動下，ACV 賬單同比增長 17%。我們對費用管理的持續關注幫助我們產生了 4200 萬美元的自由現金流。繼續保持我們年初至今強勁的自由現金流表現。總的來說，我對我們第三季度的財務表現感到滿意。我們第三季度的業績反映了新客戶和現有客戶在我們的核心雲平台和基於解決方案的產品組合中看到的價值，因為他們希望在謹慎管理成本的同時實現現代化。

A good example of this is our largest deal in the quarter with a Fortune 500 semiconductor provider that was looking to accelerate its digital transformation. This customer decided to deploy their containerized manufacturing applications on Red Hat's OpenShift on our Nutanix cloud platform to optimize their infrastructure resources and operationalize their private cloud environment in their numerous manufacturing facilities around the world. They expect this will meaningfully reduce their costs while also enabling enhanced agility in deploying new products and responding to changing market demands. We see this win as a testament to the performance, scalability and total cost of ownership benefits delivered by our platform and our ability to expand our footprint within some of the world's largest companies.

一個很好的例子是我們在本季度與一家希望加速其數字化轉型的財富 500 強半導體供應商的最大交易。該客戶決定在我們的 Nutanix 雲平台上的 Red Hat OpenShift 上部署他們的容器化製造應用程序，以優化他們的基礎設施資源並在其遍布全球的眾多製造設施中運營他們的私有云環境。他們期望這將顯著降低成本，同時還能提高部署新產品和響應不斷變化的市場需求的敏捷性。我們認為這次勝利證明了我們平台提供的性能、可擴展性和總擁有成本優勢，以及我們在一些世界上最大的公司中擴大足蹟的能力。

Another notable win in the quarter was with a leading payment solutions provider in the EMEA region, who was looking to improve their IT total cost of ownership by modernizing their infrastructure and implementing a multi-cloud architecture operating across several countries. They chose our Nutanix cloud platform including Nutanix cloud management to run their business-critical applications, leveraging its simplicity and built-in automation for infrastructure as a service. They also adopted Nutanix database service for managing and deploying their databases throughout their organization and Nutanix unified storage to service their unstructured data needs. By adopting the full Nutanix stat, this customer anticipates lowering that annual IT operating cost by 45%.

本季度的另一個顯著勝利是歐洲、中東和非洲地區領先的支付解決方案提供商，他們希望通過基礎設施現代化和實施跨多個國家運營的多雲架構來降低 IT 總擁有成本。他們選擇了我們的 Nutanix 雲平台，包括 Nutanix 雲管理來運行他們的業務關鍵型應用程序，利用其簡單性和內置的自動化基礎架構即服務。他們還採用 Nutanix 數據庫服務來管理和部署整個組織的數據庫，並採用 Nutanix 統一存儲來滿足他們的非結構化數據需求。通過採用完整的 Nutanix 統計數據，該客戶預計每年的 IT 運營成本將降低 45%。

We are also seeing customers take advantage of the capabilities of Nutanix cloud clusters or NCT to rapidly and efficiently optimize their workload distribution across on-prem and public clouds. An example in the third quarter was a government agency in the EMEA region that was looking to shift a variety of on-prem workloads running on Nutanix Cloud platform to public cloud in keeping with a government cloud-first mandate. They initially chose to shift the workloads to Azure using NC2 for what they thought would be a contingency plan for workload migration. However, given the speed and simplicity afforded by NC2 for quickly transitioning workloads without refactoring as well as the cost effectiveness they found running workloads on NC2 on Azure, they decided to make NC2 their primary solution for public cloud migration.

我們還看到客戶利用 Nutanix 雲集群或 NCT 的功能來快速有效地優化他們在本地和公共雲中的工作負載分配。第三季度的一個例子是 EMEA 地區的一家政府機構，該機構希望將在 Nutanix 雲平台上運行的各種本地工作負載轉移到公共雲，以符合政府雲優先的要求。他們最初選擇使用 NC2 將工作負載轉移到 Azure，他們認為這是工作負載遷移的應急計劃。然而，考慮到 NC2 提供的速度和簡單性，無需重構即可快速轉換工作負載，並且他們發現在 Azure 上的 NC2 上運行工作負載具有成本效益，他們決定將 NC2 作為公共雲遷移的主要解決方案。

This win demonstrates how our customers appreciate the ability to rapidly and seamlessly shift their workloads from their private clouds to the largest public cloud providers with the consistent management, governance and data services provided by the Nutanix cloud platform. Without the time and expense of refactoring their workloads and with lower ongoing operating costs.

此次勝利表明，我們的客戶如何欣賞能夠通過 Nutanix 雲平台提供的一致管理、治理和數據服務，將他們的工作負載從私有云快速無縫地轉移到最大的公共雲提供商。無需花費時間和費用來重構他們的工作負載，並且持續運營成本更低。

Moving on. In early May, we held our first in-person .NEXT user conference in almost 4 years and saw strong attendance and engagement from our customers and partners. In conjunction with .NEXT, we made several important product-related innovation announcements, reflecting our continued investment in the hybrid multi-cloud platform. First, we announced new data services, including Nutanix data services for Kubernetes, which will bring the full power of Nutanix's enterprise class storage, snapshots, and disaster recovery to Kubernetes applications. And we introduced multi-cloud snapshot technology, which will deliver cross-cloud data mobility by enabling snapshots directly to cloud-native storage, starting with AWS' S3 of the storage service.

繼續。 5 月初，我們舉行了近 4 年來的第一次面對面的 .NEXT 用戶大會，我們的客戶和合作夥伴出席並積極參與。結合 .NEXT，我們發布了幾項與產品相關的重要創新公告，反映了我們對混合多雲平台的持續投資。首先，我們發布了新的數據服務，包括面向 Kubernetes 的 Nutanix 數據服務，這將為 Kubernetes 應用程序帶來 Nutanix 企業級存儲、快照和災難恢復的全部功能。並且我們引入了多雲快照技術，該技術將通過啟用快照直接到雲原生存儲來提供跨雲數據移動性，從存儲服務的 AWS 的 S3 開始。

We also announced Nutanix Central, a cloud-delivered management solution that will enable a truly universal cloud operating model by providing a single console for visibility monitoring and management across public cloud, on-prem, hosted or edge environments. Finally, we introduced Project Beacon our vision for hybrid multi-cloud platform as a service, a multiyear effort to deliver data-centric platform-as-a-service offerings natively on Nutanix or on native public clouds. With the goal of decoupling the application and its data from the underlying infrastructure, Project Beacon aims to enable developers to build applications once and run them anywhere.

我們還發布了 Nutanix Central，這是一種雲交付的管理解決方案，它將通過提供單一控制台來跨公共雲、內部部署、託管或邊緣環境進行可見性監控和管理，從而實現真正通用的雲操作模型。最後，我們介紹了 Project Beacon 我們對混合多雲平台即服務的願景，這是一項多年努力，旨在在 Nutanix 或本地公共雲上本地提供以數據為中心的平台即服務產品。 Project Beacon 的目標是將應用程序及其數據與底層基礎設施分離，旨在使開發人員能夠一次構建應用程序並在任何地方運行它們。

In closing, while the macro environment remains uncertain, we are encouraged that the compelling value proposition of our cloud platform and the strength of our business model enabled us to raise our fiscal year top line outlook and bottom line outlook. We remain focused on delivering innovation for our customers now and in the future, while continuing to drive sustainable, profitable growth.

最後，儘管宏觀環境仍然不確定，但令我們感到鼓舞的是，我們的雲平台令人信服的價值主張和我們商業模式的實力使我們能夠提高我們的財政年度頂線前景和底線前景。我們仍然專注於為我們的客戶現在和未來提供創新，同時繼續推動可持續的盈利增長。

And with that, I'll hand it over to Rukmini Sivaraman. Rukmini?

然後，我將把它交給 Rukmini Sivaraman。魯庫米尼？

Thank you, Rajiv. Before I discuss our financial results and outlook, I would like to first provide a summary of the Audit Committee's completed review of our third-party software usage and the resulting implications. Upon completion of the investigation, the audit committee found that evaluation software from 2 of our third-party providers was used in a noncompliant manner for interoperability testing, validation, customer proof of concept, training and customer support over a multiyear period. In addition, the Audit Committee concluded that certain employees engaged in intentional misconduct to conceive use of evaluation software with respect to one of our third-party providers in violation of our code of business conduct and ethics and other policies. We have terminated employment for certain employees who were found to be primarily responsible for the intentional misconduct.

謝謝你，拉吉夫。在我討論我們的財務結果和前景之前，我想首先提供審計委員會對我們第三方軟件使用情況和由此產生的影響的完整審查的摘要。完成調查後，審計委員會發現我們的 2 家第三方供應商的評估軟件在多年期間以不合規的方式用於互操作性測試、驗證、客戶概念驗證、培訓和客戶支持。此外，審計委員會得出的結論是，某些員工故意不當行為，構想使用我們的第三方供應商之一的評估軟件，這違反了我們的商業行為準則和道德規範以及其他政策。我們已經終止了對某些被發現對故意不當行為負有主要責任的員工的僱用。

Through the investigation, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. In particular, we determined that our controls did not effectively provide the information and communication necessary to identify noncompliant use of third-party software. To address this material weakness, we are implementing or will implement several remedial measures, including enhanced internal processes, enhanced training and continuous communication regarding the importance of integrity and raising concerns in a timely manner. We have accounted for the estimated financial impact of this issue by recording cumulative estimated expenses of $11 million as of Q2 '23, which represents the estimable amount of future payments for past noncompliant usage of software from these 2 vendors accrued over a multiyear period.

通過調查，我們發現了財務報告內部控制的重大缺陷。特別是，我們確定我們的控制沒有有效地提供必要的信息和通信來識別第三方軟件的不合規使用。為了解決這一實質性缺陷，我們正在或將要實施多項補救措施，包括加強內部流程、加強培訓以及就誠信的重要性持續溝通並及時提出疑慮。我們通過記錄截至 23 年第 2 季度的 1100 萬美元的累計估計費用來計算此問題的估計財務影響，這代表了這兩家供應商在多年期間累積的過去不合規使用軟件的未來付款的估計數額。

We have accordingly also corrected the prior period financials shown in the 10-Q filed earlier today. We expect the incremental ongoing annual impact to operating expenses of this third-party software usage to be approximately in the low single-digit millions of dollars. You can find additional information, including our complete Q2 '23 results and information about the estimated financial impact and remedial measures related to the third-party software review in our 10-Q quarterly report for Q2 '23 that we filed earlier today with the SEC. We are pleased that this investigation has been completed.

因此，我們還更正了今天早些時候提交的 10-Q 中顯示的前期財務數據。我們預計，這種第三方軟件使用對運營費用的年度增量持續影響約為數百萬美元。您可以在我們今天早些時候向美國證券交易委員會提交的 23 年第二季度的 10-Q 季度報告中找到更多信息，包括我們完整的 23 年第二季度結果以及與第三方軟件審查相關的估計財務影響和補救措施的信息.我們很高興這項調查已經完成。

I will now provide commentary on our Q3 '23 results followed by the outlook for Q4 '23 and the full year 2023. Q3 was a good quarter during which we beat all guided metrics. ACV billings in Q3 was $214 million, higher than our guidance of $220 million to $225 million and representing a year-over-year growth of 17%. Revenue in Q3 was $449 million, higher than our guidance of $430 million to $440 million and a year-over-year growth of 11%. ARR at the end of Q3 was $1.467 billion, a year-over-year growth of 32%. New logo additions were about 430 in Q3. Average contract duration in Q3 was 3 years, flat quarter-over-quarter as expected.

我現在將對我們的 23 年第三季度業績以及 23 年第四季度和 2023 年全年的展望進行評論。第三季度是一個很好的季度，我們超過了所有指導指標。第三季度的 ACV 賬單為 2.14 億美元，高於我們 2.2​​ 億美元至 2.25 億美元的指導，同比增長 17%。第三季度收入為 4.49 億美元，高於我們 4.3 億美元至 4.4 億美元的預期，同比增長 11%。第三季度末ARR為14.67億美元，同比增長32%。第三季度新增徽標約為 430 個。第三季度的平均合同期限為 3 年，與預期的季度環比持平。

As described previously, the percentage of orders with future start dates, likely due to partner supply chain constraints continue to be an assumption in our Q3 guidance. Q3 revenue benefited approximately $5 million from the reduction in percentage of future start dates over time as more license revenue was recognized in quarter then was deferred. In line with the $5 million estimate we had provided on our last earnings call. As supply chain challenges faced by our server partners appear to have normalized, we expect its impact on our business to normalize as well. As a result, going forward, we will not continue to provide this quantification of revenue impact from orders with future start dates.

如前所述，可能由於合作夥伴供應鏈限制，具有未來開始日期的訂單百分比仍然是我們第三季度指南中的假設。隨著時間的推移，未來開始日期百分比的減少使第三季度的收入受益約 500 萬美元，因為更多的許可收入在本季度確認，然後被推遲。與我們在上次財報電話會議上提供的 500 萬美元估算值一致。由於我們的服務器合作夥伴面臨的供應鏈挑戰似乎已經正常化，我們預計它對我們業務的影響也會正常化。因此，今後我們將不會繼續提供具有未來開始日期的訂單對收入影響的量化。

Non-GAAP gross margin in Q3 was 84%. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q3 were $369 million. Non-GAAP operating margin in Q3 was 2%, and including the impact of about $10 million in nonrecurring tax obligations related to a portion of our employee RSUs that vested in Q3 and approximately $9 million of nonrecurring vehicle and advisory expenses, both of which related to the third-party software review and the delay in our 10-Q filing for Q2. Excluding these onetime items, non-GAAP operating margin in Q3 would have been approximately 6%. Non-GAAP net income in Q3 was $12 million or EPS of $0.04 per share based on fully diluted weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 282 million shares. Billings linearity was good and DSOs were 28 days in Q3.

第三季度的非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 84%。第三季度的非美國通用會計準則運營費用為 3.69 億美元。第三季度的非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率為 2%，其中包括與我們在第三季度歸屬的部分員工 RSU 相關的約 1000 萬美元的非經常性稅收義務的影響，以及約 900 萬美元的非經常性車輛和諮詢費用，兩者都與第三方軟件審查和我們第二季度 10-Q 文件的延遲。排除這些一次性項目，第三季度的非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率約為 6%。第三季度的非美國通用會計準則淨收入為 1200 萬美元，或每股收益為 0.04 美元，基於約 2.82 億股已發行股票的完全攤薄加權平均數。比林斯線性良好，第三季度 DSO 為 28 天。

Free cash flow in Q3 was $42 million, implying free cash flow margin of 9%. A few additional notes on Q3 free cash flow. One, the approximately $31 million payment for the settlement of the previously outstanding securities class action litigation which is the amount inclusive of legal fees and expenses, and net of our expected recovery under our D&O insurance is now expected to be paid and settled in Q4 rather than in Q3 as previously expected. The change in timing is due to routine process. Two, the $42 million of free cash flow in Q3 includes the impact of approximately $10 million of cash usage in Q3 for nonrecurring tax obligations related to a portion of our employee RSUs that vested in March as expected and mentioned on our last earnings call, and caused by the delay in our Q2 10-Q filing.

第三季度的自由現金流為 4200 萬美元，意味著自由現金流率為 9%。關於第三季度自由現金流的一些附加說明。第一，為解決先前未決的證券集體訴訟而支付的約 3100 萬美元的款項包括法律費用和開支，並扣除我們在 D&O 保險下的預期追償額，現在預計將在第四季度支付和結清，而不是低於此前預期的第三季度。時間的變化是由於常規過程。第二，第三季度 4200 萬美元的自由現金流包括第三季度約 1000 萬美元現金使用的影響，這些現金用於與我們的部分員工 RSU 相關的非經常性納稅義務，這些義務按預期在 3 月份歸屬，並在我們上次財報電話會議上提到，以及由於我們第二季度 10-Q 申報的延遲。

Three, the delay in our Q2, 10-Q filing also meant that we paused our ESPP program, delaying an estimated $20 million of net cash outflow related to ESPP, which would normally occur in Q3 to Q4. And fourth, free cash flow in Q3 was also impacted by approximately $6 million of payments for nonrecurring legal and advisory expenses related to the third-party software review. We ended Q3 with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $1.358 billion, up slightly from $1.311 billion in '23.

第三，我們第二季度 10-Q 文件的延遲也意味著我們暫停了我們的 ESPP 計劃，延遲了與 ESPP 相關的估計 2000 萬美元的淨現金流出，這通常發生在第三季度至第四季度。第四，第三季度的自由現金流也受到與第三方軟件審查相關的非經常性法律和諮詢費用支付約 600 萬美元的影響。我們以現金、現金等價物和短期投資結束了第三季度 13.58 億美元，略高於 23 年的 13.11 億美元。

Moving on to Q4. The guidance for Q4 fiscal '23 is as follows: ACV billings of $240 million to $250 million, revenue of $470 million to $480 million; non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 84% and non-GAAP operating margin of 9% to 10%.

繼續第四季度。 23 財年第四季度的指導如下：ACV 賬單為 2.4 億美元至 2.5 億美元，收入為 4.7 億美元至 4.8 億美元；非美國通用會計準則毛利率約為 84%，非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率為 9% 至 10%。

Moving on to the full year outlook. With 1 quarter left. The guidance for fiscal year '23 is as follows: ACV billings of $915 million to $925 million, a year-over-year growth of 22% at the midpoint of the range. Revenue of $1.84 billion to $1.85 billion, a year-over-year growth of 17% at the midpoint. Non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 84%, non-GAAP operating margin of 6% to 7%, a year-over-year improvement of over 10 points of margin at the midpoint. Free cash flow of $125 million to $135 million, implying a free cash flow margin of 7% at the midpoint.

轉向全年展望。還剩 1 個季度。 '23 財年的指導如下：ACV 賬單為 9.15 億美元至 9.25 億美元，在該範圍的中點同比增長 22%。收入在 18.4 億美元至 18.5 億美元之間，中點同比增長 17%。非美國通用會計準則毛利率約為 84%，非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率為 6% 至 7%，中點利潤率同比提高超過 10 個百分點。自由現金流為 1.25 億美元至 1.35 億美元，這意味著中點的自由現金流利潤率為 7%。

I will now provide some color on our full year guidance. First, we are seeing continued new on expansion opportunities for our solutions despite the uncertain macro environment. However, as Rajiv mentioned, and similar to last quarter, we have seen a modest elongation of sales cycles likely due to increased deal inspection. Our fiscal year '23 new and expansion ACV performance remains impacted by some of these macro dynamics and is performing slightly below our expectations entering the year and what we believe its longer-term potential is. We have considered a dynamic in our updated guidance. The renewals business continues to perform well, however, it tends to be at a lower aggregate average contract duration compared to our new and expansion business. Our relative economics on renewals have also continued to improve over time as the renewals team has improved their execution.

我現在將為我們的全年指導提供一些顏色。首先，儘管宏觀環境不確定，我們仍看到我們的解決方案不斷有新的擴展機會。然而，正如 Rajiv 提到的那樣，與上個季度類似，我們發現銷售週期略有延長，這可能是由於交易檢查增加所致。我們的 23 財年新的和擴展的 ACV 表現仍然受到其中一些宏觀動態的影響，並且表現略低於我們進入今年的預期以及我們認為其長期潛力。我們在更新的指南中考慮了動態。續約業務繼續表現良好，但與我們的新業務和擴展業務相比，它的總平均合同期限往往較低。隨著續訂團隊提高了執行力，我們在續訂方面的相對經濟性也隨著時間的推移而持續改善。

Second, similar to our comments last quarter, the full year guidance assumes that contract durations would decrease slightly compared to fiscal year '22. Third, as stated previously, non-GAAP operating margin outlook for fiscal year '23 is 6% to 7%. Excluding the onetime expenses related to the third-party software review, this range would have been 7% to 8%. Finally, the updated free cash flow guidance of $125 million to $135 million includes the impact of the following nonrecurring items totaling about $65 million. Approximately $10 million of cash usage in Q3 for nonrecurring tax obligations related to a portion of our employee RSUs vesting, which is nonrecurring because it was due to the delayed filing of our 10-Q. Approximately $31 million in net cash outflow expected in Q4 from the previously mentioned litigation settlement. Approximately $15 million for legal and advisory fees related to the third-party software review across Q3 and Q4. And finally, an $11 million estimated payment in Q4 for the potential resolution with the third-party software vendors.

其次，與我們上個季度的評論類似，全年指導假設合同期限與 22 財年相比略有縮短。第三，如前所述，23 財年的非 GAAP 營業利潤率前景為 6% 至 7%。排除與第三方軟件審查相關的一次性費用，這個範圍應該是 7% 到 8%。最後，更新後的 1.25 億美元至 1.35 億美元的自由現金流指導包括以下非經常性項目的影響，總計約 6500 萬美元。第三季度約有 1000 萬美元的現金用於與我們部分員工 RSU 歸屬相關的非經常性納稅義務，這是非經常性的，因為這是由於我們 10-Q 的延遲提交。上述訴訟和解預計在第四季度產生約 3100 萬美元的淨現金流出。第三季度和第四季度與第三方軟件審查相關的法律和諮詢費用約為 1500 萬美元。最後，預計在第四季度支付 1100 萬美元用於與第三方軟件供應商的潛在解決方案。

In closing, we are pleased that our Q3 results reflect our continued execution towards our stated objective of sustainable, profitable growth. and we expect to continue that focus. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

最後，我們很高興我們的第三季度業績反映了我們繼續執行我們既定的可持續盈利增長目標。我們希望繼續關注這一點。有了這個，接線員，請打開問題線路。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Jim Fish of Piper Sandler.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Piper Sandler 的 Jim Fish。

Nice quarter and congrats on getting the investigation behind you and being a fairly minimal impact as we kind of all talked about here. Maybe just starting off on the assumptions around guide and what you guys are seeing with sales cycles. Obviously, we've talked about elongated sales cycle for some time now. We're hearing it from others in kind of this space. I guess how much have elongated sales cycle slowed or hindered that expansion rate with existing customers? And I know you're not going to give you exact, but are net retention rates closer to essentially 120 now than where we were kind of before entering this year? Or as it actually gets a bit lower just given the macro economy?

不錯的季度，祝賀你完成了調查，並且影響很小，正如我們在這裡談論的那樣。也許只是從圍繞指南的假設開始，以及你們在銷售週期中看到的情況。顯然，我們已經討論了延長的銷售週期一段時間了。我們正在這個空間中從其他人那裡聽到它。我想延長的銷售週期在多大程度上減緩或阻礙了現有客戶的擴張速度？而且我知道你不會給你確切的，但現在的淨保留率是否比我們進入今年之前的水平更接近 120？還是考慮到宏觀經濟，它實際上會降低一點？

Jim, let me start with some qualitative comments there and Rukmini can give you some numbers there. So first of all, I think you talked about in NRR, when you look at our renewals, by the way, renewals, first of all, is solid, okay? No issues really from the macro piece. Now when you look at the macro itself in terms of the impact, it impacts both new logos as well as expansion business with our existing customers. Now the impact is similar to what we saw last quarter, which is -- takes longer in terms of deals are inspected more by some customers. And what we've seen is, therefore, the sales cycle has gotten modestly longer.

吉姆，讓我從那裡的一些定性評論開始，Rukmini 可以在那裡給你一些數字。所以首先，我想你在 NRR 談到過，當你看我們的續約時，順便說一下，續約首先是可靠的，好嗎？宏觀方面真的沒有問題。現在，當您從影響的角度來看宏觀本身時，它會影響新徽標以及與我們現有客戶的擴展業務。現在的影響與我們上個季度看到的類似，即 - 一些客戶更多地檢查交易需要更長的時間。因此，我們所看到的是，銷售週期略有延長。

Now the other factor here, which is common during this kind of an environment is that customers -- some customers can tend to sweat their existing assets in the current environment which, of course, has an impact in terms of both new and expansion business for us. They might continue to run as long as they can before they spend more money. So if you look at that, the impact is on our FY '23 new and expansion ACV because of these dynamics. And what I'd say overall, qualitative color for that is that, that new and expansion business for us is performing slightly below our expectations entering the year and also below what we believe is long-term potential. Rukmini, do you want to add anything?

現在這裡的另一個因素，在這種環境中很常見，是客戶——一些客戶可能傾向於在當前環境中消耗他們現有的資產，這當然會對新業務和擴展業務產生影響我們。他們可能會在花更多錢之前盡可能地繼續運營。因此，如果您看一下，由於這些動態，影響是對我們的 FY '23 新的和擴展的 ACV。總體而言，我要說的是，我們的新業務和擴展業務的表現略低於我們今年的預期，也低於我們認為的長期潛力。 Rukmini，你想補充什麼嗎？

Yes. And Jim, thanks for the question on NRR. And as you noted, we don't really disclose that on a quarterly basis, Jim. But what I will say is that it's sort of still in the range that I think we had talked about at our last Investor Day in that 121%, 25% range. And so I'll leave it at that with regard to not specifically.

是的。吉姆，感謝您提出有關 NRR 的問題。正如你所指出的，吉姆，我們並沒有真正按季度披露這一點。但我要說的是，它仍然在我認為我們在上次投資者日討論的 121%、25% 範圍內。因此，關於不具體的問題，我將保留在那裡。

Yes, that's helpful, undermining and review. I appreciate that. And maybe, Rajiv, for you, your favorite question, any impact yet from your vantage point with the ongoing acquisition of really your top competitor and outside of that direct competition, I guess, what are you seeing from native hyperscaler offerings and the traditional raise? Obviously, you just alluded to some sweating of assets. Just trying to understand the competitive landscape here as you guys are still putting up solid growth.

是的，這很有幫助，破壞和審查。我很感激。也許，拉吉夫，對於你來說，你最喜歡的問題是，從你的角度來看，你的最大競爭對手的持續收購以及直接競爭之外的任何影響，我想，你從本地超大規模產品和傳統加薪中看到了什麼？顯然，你只是提到了一些資產流失。只是想了解這裡的競爭格局，因為你們仍在穩步增長。

Yes. I think, Jim, first of all, not a whole lot of change compared to last quarter on that. So clearly, on the Broadcom piece in terms of the acquisition, we're certainly seeing that higher level of engagement, continuing to do that with many customers around the world who are looking to look at their options, manage potential risks associated with this acquisition.

是的。我認為，吉姆，首先，與上一季度相比，變化不大。很明顯，在收購方面的 Broadcom 部分，我們肯定會看到更高水平的參與，繼續與世界各地的許多客戶一起這樣做，他們正在尋找他們的選擇，管理與此次收購相關的潛在風險.

Now as we talked about our sales cycle is in 12 months. And so we haven't quite seen factoring in meaningful benefit from this in FY '22. Now on the other side of the equation from a competitive dynamic, it's the cloud native or hyperscale piece of it. What I would say is, if anything, I think our customers have gotten much more careful about what to put in the public cloud versus simply going all to the public cloud. So we see much more focus in terms of what should I be running on-prem, what should have been using in the public cloud? How can I look at optimizing that.

現在我們談到我們的銷售週期是 12 個月。因此，我們還沒有完全看到在 22 財年從中獲得有意義的收益。現在，在競爭動態的等式的另一邊，它是雲原生或超大規模的一部分。我要說的是，如果有的話，我認為我們的客戶對於將什麼放入公共雲而不是簡單地全部轉移到公共雲已經更加謹慎。所以我們看到更多的關注點是我應該在本地運行什麼，什麼應該在公共雲中使用？我如何看待優化它。

And that's actually playing to our strength and certainly helping us -- our whole strategy around helping our customers operate in a hybrid multi-cloud world is helping us at this time.

這實際上是在發揮我們的優勢，並且肯定會幫助我們——我們幫助客戶在混合多雲世界中運營的整個戰略此時正在幫助我們。

One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Cikos of Needham.

稍等一會兒。我們的下一個問題來自 Needham 的 Mike Cikos。

Thanks for getting me on here and I'll echo similar comments to my peer here as far as congrats on getting the audit committee investigation behind you in the -- moving on to the next chapter. I wanted to highlight the strength that you guys called out this quarter and then the uptick in guide. Can you help us think through how the quarter played out, maybe more from a linearity perspective as each progressive month worked through the quarter. Was it building? Or was the outperformance snowballing over the course of the quarter? Or is it really more dedicated to a specific month within the quarter as far as how trends played out?

謝謝你讓我來到這裡，我會在這裡回應我的同行的類似評論，祝賀你在審計委員會的調查中落後於你——繼續下一章。我想強調你們本季度所展現的實力，然後是指南的提升。您能否幫助我們思考一下本季度的表現，也許更多是從線性的角度來看，因為每個漸進的月份都在本季度內發揮作用。是在建嗎？還是整個季度的表現都像滾雪球一樣？還是就趨勢如何發揮作用而言，它真的更專注於本季度內的特定月份？

And then my follow-up, I'll just ask it now. But -- good to see the slight uptick on gross margins as well. Is there anything you can do to help us wrap our heads around what's driving that uptick in gross margins and how sustainable that is as we think about the longevity of the business?

然後我的後續行動，我現在就問。但是——很高興看到毛利率也略有上升。您能做些什麼來幫助我們了解是什麼推動了毛利率的上升，以及在我們考慮業務壽命時這種情況的可持續性如何？

Thank you, Mike. So first, a question on linearity. So the linearity, I would say was largely as expected. There wasn't any significant unusual trends compared to typical Q3, Mike? So that's on the linearity. And then on gross margin, what I would say is we continue to be really focused on efficiency and all of that. So in terms of, I think, how sustainable this is, I think, was your question, we think that we will be in that low 80s range, right, maybe move around a little bit. One of the things we are focused on is continuing to make sure that we are attaching professional services where it makes sense, especially for some of the newer parts of our portfolio to make sure customers are adopting them effectively, and we're helping them do so. So it might move around a little bit here and there, but you saw the guide for the full year as well, which factors in all of those moving pieces at this point.

謝謝你，邁克。首先，關於線性度的問題。所以我想說的線性度在很大程度上符合預期。與典型的第三季度相比，沒有任何明顯的異常趨勢，邁克？這就是線性度。然後關於毛利率，我想說的是我們繼續真正關注效率和所有這些。因此，就您的問題而言，我認為這有多可持續，我們認為我們將處於 80 年代的低水平，對，也許會稍微移動一下。我們關注的其中一件事是繼續確保我們在有意義的地方附加專業服務，特別是對於我們產品組合中的一些較新部分，以確保客戶有效地採用它們，我們正在幫助他們做到所以。所以它可能會在這里和那裡移動一點點，但你也看到了全年的指南，這在這一點上考慮了所有這些移動的部分。

Makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much Rukmini.

很有道理。非常感謝 Rukmini。

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Pinjalim Bora of JPMorgan.

謝謝。稍等一會兒。我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Pinjalim Bora。

Congrats on the quarter and great to hear the conclusion of the investigation. Rajiv, it seems like a lot of innovation is coming out of Nutanix in the (inaudible), you talked about Project Beacon. It seems like a Holy Grail. I think VMware has kind of tried it as well. Talk to us about kind of where are the building blocks of the technology around that, a multi-hybrid cloud PaaS platform? And what -- where are we? How long is it going to take for us to kind of see a product launch GA?

祝賀這個季度，很高興聽到調查的結論。 Rajiv，在（聽不清）中似乎有很多創新來自 Nutanix，你談到了 Project Beacon。它看起來像一個聖杯。我認為 VMware 也嘗試過。和我們談談圍繞它的技術構建塊在哪裡，一個多混合雲 PaaS 平台？什麼——我們在哪裡？我們需要多長時間才能看到產品發布 GA？

Yes. So if you look at the Project Beacon and just a quick recap of that is, it's a multi-cloud platform as a service focused on data offerings to help companies build an app once using the set of services and be truly able to run them anywhere, completely portable on any underlying substrate, whether it be a cloud native on any public cloud or whether it be on-prem. So that's the quick recap of the vision.

是的。因此，如果您查看 Project Beacon 并快速回顧一下，它是一個多雲平台即服務，專注於數據產品，可幫助公司在使用一組服務後構建應用程序，並真正能夠在任何地方運行它們，在任何底層基板上完全可移植，無論它是任何公共雲上的雲原生還是本地。這就是願景的快速回顧。

Now if you look at -- this is clearly what we said that (inaudible) this is a multiyear journey for us, and it happens in multiple steps. If you look at where we are, we have a foundation for that today with our Nutanix database service, we today offer that on-prem on a Nutanix underlying substrate and help companies manage databases in a consistent way -- a variety of databases. We are on a path to make that offering available on top of native public cloud substrates. So that will be the first step in the road map. And we will comment on that in terms of specific execution when we get closer to releasing it.

現在，如果你看——這顯然是我們所說的（聽不清）這對我們來說是一個多年的旅程，它分多個步驟進行。如果你看看我們現在的位置，我們今天通過我們的 Nutanix 數據庫服務為此奠定了基礎，我們今天在 Nutanix 底層基板上提供該本地部署，並幫助公司以一致的方式管理數據庫——各種數據庫。我們正在努力使該產品在本地公共雲基板之上可用。因此，這將是路線圖中的第一步。當我們接近發布它時，我們將在具體執行方面對此發表評論。

And then beyond that will be other services, for example, things like messaging, streaming, cashing, et cetera, that we would over time add on. Some of these could also be done in partnerships. So we -- like I said, we started with our (inaudible) offering and over multiple years, we will get to that journey. And I also expect that there will be a broader ecosystem of people like us who are like-minded in terms of establishing this truly hybrid vision for building apps and being able to run them everywhere.

除此之外，我們還會提供其他服務，例如消息傳遞、流媒體、現金等，我們會隨著時間的推移添加這些服務。其中一些也可以通過合作夥伴關係來完成。所以我們 - 就像我說的那樣，我們從我們的（聽不清）產品開始，經過多年，我們將踏上這段旅程。而且我還希望會有一個更廣泛的生態系統，由像我們這樣的人組成，他們在建立這種構建應用程序並能夠在任何地方運行它們的真正混合願景方面志同道合。

Understood. Understood. And Rukmini, maybe my math is wrong here or maybe I'm getting the numbers wrong. It seems like there's a little bit of cautious sentiment going forward. But when I look at the guidance, I think you're raising the revenue guidance by $40 million, and you beat by something like 13 or 14, if I read that correctly. Help me -- what gives you confidence if the macro is actually getting a little bit worse?

明白了。明白了。還有 Rukmini，也許我的數學有誤，或者我弄錯了數字。似乎對未來有一點謹慎的情緒。但是當我看指導時，我認為你將收入指導提高了 4000 萬美元，如果我沒看錯的話，你會超過 13 或 14。幫助我——如果宏觀經濟實際上變得更糟，是什麼讓你有信心？

Thank you, Pinjalim, for that question. So I'll guide has a few pieces, right? So let me start with (inaudible) your questions on revenue. But if I just talk with ACV billings here for a second, we did take that guide up as well, right, from 1915 to 925 and as you pointed out, we took revenue up as well. So one is that we feel good given all the caveats right, to the point about the more elongation of sales cycles, in some cases, which you touched upon earlier, I believe, if it's a new logo, we see customers choosing to sort of stretch their assets out a little longer. So some of those dynamics are playing out.

謝謝 Pinjalim 提出這個問題。所以我會指導幾件，對嗎？因此，讓我從（聽不清）您關於收入的問題開始。但是，如果我在這裡與 ACV 賬單談一談，我們確實也從 1915 年到 925 年提高了該指南，正如您所指出的那樣，我們也提高了收入。所以一個是我們感覺很好，因為所有的警告都是正確的，在某些情況下，銷售週期會更長，我相信，如果它是一個新標誌，我們會看到客戶選擇延長他們的資產。所以其中一些動態正在發揮作用。

But I think a few things that we believe sort of bolsters that overall guidance is our renewables business, as we said from day 1 from when we started the year, it has continued to perform well, right? And with that mix growing over time, that helps us form a pretty strong foundation for the guide overall. And then the one other point I'll make is ACV billings is more of a transactional sort of quarter-over-quarter number, right, if things that are built in the quarter, but revenue obviously flows in as a waterfall over time. So there's also the net revenue benefit we are seeing, and we've talked about this each quarter this year from recognizing more license revenue, right, from the future start date orders than we were deferring which is a boost that seem more on the revenue side than a seed on the billing side. So those are some of the things that are driving that guide, Pinjalim.

但我認為，我們認為有幾件事可以支持整體指導是我們的可再生能源業務，正如我們從年初的第一天開始所說的那樣，它一直表現良好，對吧？隨著時間的推移，這種組合不斷增加，這有助於我們為整個指南奠定堅實的基礎。然後我要說的另一點是，ACV 賬單更像是一種交易類型的季度環比數字，對，如果是在本季度建造的東西，但隨著時間的推移，收入顯然會像瀑布一樣流入。因此，還有我們看到的淨收入收益，我們今年每個季度都談到了這一點，因為我們從未來開始日期的訂單中確認了更多的許可收入，而不是我們推遲的訂單，這似乎對收入有更大的推動作用一側比計費側的種子。 Pinjalim，這些就是推動該指南的一些因素。

Can I kind of one follow-up lastly. Did you bring your assumption on that start date for Q4 guidance kind of down?

最後我可以跟進一下嗎？您是否降低了對第 4 季度指導的開始日期的假設？

So we haven't specifically diverse water assumptions (inaudible) Pinjalim, but I think it's fair to say that overall, we have seen the (inaudible) dynamics normalize for our server partners going in, we had assumed that things would be better, right, towards the end of the year, but we had to assume it could be completely normal, right? But at this point, it does seem like those have largely normalized.

所以我們沒有特別多樣化的水假設（聽不清）Pinjalim，但我認為可以公平地說，總的來說，我們已經看到我們的服務器合作夥伴進入的（聽不清）動態正常化，我們假設情況會更好，對吧，快到年底了，但我們不得不假設它可能是完全正常的，對吧？但在這一點上，這些似乎已經基本正常化。

Our next question comes from the line of (inaudible).

我們的下一個問題來自（聽不清）。

Congrats on the quarter and the successful competition of the investigation. I have 2 questions. First of all, do you have any comments on the channel partners, especially the service providers, especially against this Broadcom backdrop and VMware, hopefully, post merger, you guys can get more love from service providers. Any thoughts on that?

祝賀調查的季度和成功的競爭。我有兩個問題。首先，您對渠道合作夥伴，特別是服務提供商有什麼意見，特別是在Broadcom背景下和VMware，希望合併後，你們可以得到更多服務提供商的愛。對此有什麼想法嗎？

Absolutely, George. I'll tell you, I mean, that's the larger large untapped opportunity for us because that's a route to market that historically we have not spent a lot of time on and only recently have really started engaging with service provider partners. In fact, and it's already bearing fruit for us. I think last quarter or the quarter before, some of the largest deals in the quarter came through the service provider channel. So we keep adding to our service providers set of partners. We actually have high hopes in terms of that being a strong channel for us going forward.

當然，喬治。我會告訴你，我的意思是，這對我們來說是更大的未開發機會，因為這是一條進入市場的途徑，從歷史上看，我們並沒有花很多時間，直到最近才真正開始與服務提供商合作夥伴接觸。事實上，它已經為我們帶來了成果。我認為上個季度或前一個季度，本季度一些最大的交易來自服務提供商渠道。因此，我們不斷增加我們的服務提供商合作夥伴。實際上，我們對它成為我們前進的強大渠道寄予厚望。

What I would still say is that we are still in the first inning of a baseball game to put that analogy when it comes to our service providers in terms of billings that out of market. And to your point, I think, clearly, there's a very large established service provider channel with the Investor Day and we're only on our -- and I think some of those channel partners, service providers are going to be certainly more inclined to work with us more So going forward.

我仍然要說的是，我們仍處於棒球比賽的第一局，當涉及到我們的服務提供商時，就市場外的賬單而言，我們仍處於棒球比賽的第一局。就你的觀點而言，我認為，很明顯，投資者日有一個非常大的已建立的服務提供商渠道，我們只是在我們的 - 我認為其中一些渠道合作夥伴，服務提供商肯定會更傾向於與我們合作更多所以前進。

Great. Also, Rajiv, a quick follow-up. In terms of the land spend, are you seeing kind of increasing attach to the wholesale APAC and especially given kind of a more mature kind of business model and the kind of some of the additional use cases. Maybe you can unpack quantify so the attach kind of growing over time for the entire platform.

偉大的。另外，拉吉夫，快速跟進。在土地支出方面，您是否看到對批發亞太地區的關注度有所增加，尤其是考慮到一種更成熟的商業模式和一些額外用例的類型。也許你可以解壓量化，這樣整個平台的附加值會隨著時間的推移而增長。

Yes, there's no doubt. I mean I think if you recall, we came out with our simplified solution-oriented product portfolio a while ago. And we have now seen an increasing portion of our deals, of course, coming through that new portfolio. Now as part of that, the very specific things that we've seen is Nutanix cloud management, notably higher attach for Nutanix cloud management as part of what we sell today. So whenever we sell Nutanix cloud infrastructure, there's a very logical attach of cloud management, and we see that certainly happening impact.

是的，毫無疑問。我的意思是，我想如果你還記得的話，我們不久前推出了我們簡化的面向解決方案的產品組合。當然，我們現在已經看到越來越多的交易來自新的投資組合。現在，作為其中的一部分，我們看到的非常具體的事情是 Nutanix 雲管理，特別是作為我們今天銷售的產品的一部分，Nutanix 雲管理的附加值更高。因此，每當我們銷售 Nutanix 雲基礎設施時，雲管理就非常合乎邏輯，我們看到了肯定會發生的影響。

And then I think on the other pieces, I think Nutanix database service tends to be somewhat more of a specialized cell because it is targeting database admins and developers versus the core infrastructure. So that's not as much of an attach, although we are trying to attack that more with database workloads running on our platform. And then unified storage, which is the last component of our portfolio there. Certainly, I think is also seeing a good attach. So we are actually quite happy with how your wise portfolio is going and being adopted in the market. And and customers are certainly wanting to adopt more and more of the entire portfolio. So it's -- when people want to build a cloud, it's like I said, very common for them to consider you're taking the whole thing, whole stack, which would be NCI and CM plus some in the U.S.

然後我認為在其他方面，我認為 Nutanix 數據庫服務更像是一個專門的單元，因為它針對的是數據庫管理員和開發人員，而不是核心基礎設施。所以這不是一個附加，儘管我們正試圖通過在我們的平台上運行的數據庫工作負載來攻擊它。然後是統一存儲，這是我們產品組合的最後一個組成部分。當然，我認為也看到了一個很好的附件。因此，我們實際上對您明智的投資組合的進展情況以及在市場上的採用情況感到非常滿意。而且客戶當然希望採用越來越多的整個產品組合。所以它是——當人們想要構建雲時，就像我說的，他們很常見地認為你正在拿走整個東西，整個堆棧，這將是 NCI 和 CM 加上美國的一些。

Okay. Great. And thanks again, I will go back to the queue.

好的。偉大的。再次感謝，我會回到隊列中。

One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Meta Marshall of Morgan Stanley.

稍等一會兒。我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Meta Marshall。

Great. I appreciate it. Congrats on the quarter, guys. Maybe you guys have commented on sort of cloud optimization projects or data center modernization projects clearly a theme across multiple names over the past few quarters. Just where do you think customers are on that journey of kind of figuring out what the end shade of what their data centers are looking like? And does that kind of involve -- you just spoke about kind of deeper adoption of the portfolio, but I guess I'm just wondering, does that involve kind of a deeper conversation about what Nutanix products could be used kind of upfront. So maybe just kind of where are we in figuring out kind of their end state on hybrid cloud? And just does that involve kind of more services upfront from Nutanix?

偉大的。我很感激。恭喜這個季度，伙計們。也許你們已經對雲優化項目或數據中心現代化項目進行了評論，這顯然是過去幾個季度中多個名稱的主題。您認為客戶在弄清楚他們的數據中心的最終陰影是什麼樣子的旅程中處於什麼位置？這是否涉及——你剛剛談到了更深入地採用產品組合，但我想我只是想知道，這是否涉及關於可以預先使用哪些 Nutanix 產品的更深入的對話。那麼，也許只是我們在哪裡弄清楚他們在混合雲上的最終狀態？這是否涉及 Nutanix 提供的更多服務？

Yes. I think that's a very good question, Meta. So in fact, I'm just -- I had a conversation only yesterday with one of our large enterprise customers. What I would say is I think they were 5 years ago there were a set of customers who said, we are going to go to the public cloud period, the cloud first. And now it's much more about a cloud operating model, which is they like what the cloud offers in terms of agility, self-service, rich set of services and sometimes an OpEx model instead of a CapEx model in terms of consumption. They like that, but not necessarily a location, right? So if you just go and do everything in the public cloud, they realize that cost optimization is a growing and important part of what they have to deal with today. So what we are seeing right now is much more discussion around this hybrid multi-cloud. People wanted to run workloads across both locations.

是的。我認為這是一個很好的問題，Meta。所以事實上，我只是 - 我昨天才與我們的一位大型企業客戶進行了交談。我想說的是，我認為他們在 5 年前有一組客戶說，我們將進入公共雲時期，首先是雲。現在更多的是關於雲運營模型，他們喜歡雲在敏捷性、自助服務、豐富的服務集方面提供的東西，有時在消費方面是 OpEx 模型而不是 CapEx 模型。他們喜歡那個，但不一定是一個位置，對吧？因此，如果你只是去公共雲中做所有事情，他們就會意識到成本優化是他們今天必須處理的一個日益重要的部分。因此，我們現在看到的是圍繞這種混合多雲的更多討論。人們希望在兩個地點運行工作負載。

And for us, one of the things that we are working hard to do is to actually build awareness within our customer base about the fact that we do actually have offerings that are very relevant to them in terms of enabling them to operate across all of this because if you recall, our own history as a company, we started out most people -- customers now of us as a HCI company, right, hyperconverged infrastructure. And we've been working hard to get our narrative out in terms of what we can do for them today.

對於我們來說，我們正在努力做的一件事就是在我們的客戶群中真正建立起這樣的意識，即我們確實擁有與他們非常相關的產品，使他們能夠在所有這些方面開展業務因為如果你還記得，我們自己作為一家公司的歷史，我們開始了大多數人 - 現在我們作為 HCI 公司的客戶，對，超融合基礎設施。我們一直在努力講述我們今天能為他們做些什麼。

And when we talked about how we can actually help them operate across both these environments very well, very efficiently. I think the conversation becomes much more strategic with our customers and they start using more of our portfolio and certainly more of our services as well that to implement some of the capabilities there. So I would say, again, for us, the -- there's a lot of, I think, still opportunity here that this whole hybrid operations and mindset from our customers is opening up.

當我們談到我們如何真正幫助他們在這兩種環境中很好、非常高效地運作時。我認為與我們的客戶的對話變得更具戰略意義，他們開始使用我們更多的產品組合，當然還有更多的服務，以實現那裡的一些功能。所以我想再次說，對我們來說，我認為，這裡仍然有很多機會，我們客戶的整個混合運營和心態正在開放。

Great. And maybe just a doing this back of the envelope, but it would seem that the OpEx step down quarter-on-quarter on the guide. Is that all just from onetime impacts that you kind of saw in fiscal Q3 and so underlying to actually relatively stable? Or is there anything that I'm just missing there?

偉大的。也許只是在信封後面做這件事，但似乎 OpEx 在指南上按季度下降。這是否僅來自您在第三財季看到的一次性影響，因此實際上相對穩定？或者有什麼我只是想念的嗎？

No, that's exactly right, Meta. The underlying OpEx when you back out some of these onetime nonrecurring items that I talked about, relatively stable. I mean, there's some moving pieces, but really small. So you are correct that if that goes out Q3, Q4 should be relatively stable.

不，完全正確，Meta。當你取消我談到的一些一次性非經常性項目時，基礎運營支出相對穩定。我的意思是，有一些動人的作品，但真的很小。所以你是正確的，如果第三季度結束，第四季度應該相對穩定。

Okay. Perfect.

好的。完美的。

One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Ader of William Blair.

稍等一會兒。我們的下一個問題來自 William Blair 的 Jason Ader。

I wanted to just follow up on that last question. After Rajiv in terms of what you've seen over the last 5 years, let's say, the kind of the pace of customers shifting workloads to the public cloud, refactoring applications, a lot of initiatives around that over the last 5 years. In this environment of cost optimization, have you seen enterprises sort of take a step back and say, you know what, maybe we were moving a little bit too quickly and give things a little more evaluation and thought and you talked about PCL, so maybe just kind of paint a picture for us in terms of this last, I don't know, 12 months versus what you've seen in the prior 4 years?

我只想跟進最後一個問題。在 Rajiv 之後，就你在過去 5 年中所看到的情況而言，比方說，客戶將工作負載轉移到公共雲、重構應用程序的速度，以及過去 5 年中圍繞此開展的許多舉措。在這種成本優化的環境下，你有沒有看到企業退後一步說，你知道嗎，也許我們行動有點太快了，給事情多了一點評估和思考，你談到了 PCL，所以也許只是為我們畫一幅關於這最後的圖，我不知道，12 個月與你在前 4 年所看到的相比？

Yes, Jason, I would say that (inaudible) has definitely changed over the last year on this topic. I think they've got a set of customers who said, we are going to refactor, let's go move everything to the public cloud. And I think they ran into 2 issues. One was that it actually was pretty expensive for them to refactor in the first place. And then second, once they did refactor and ran everything into the public cloud, and they're starting to operate at scale, I mean, it's an easy on ramp, right, in the sense that upfront is very easy, you like the ease of use and so forth.

是的，Jason，我想說的是（聽不清）在過去一年中這個話題確實發生了變化。我認為他們有一群客戶說，我們要重構，讓我們把一切都轉移到公共雲上。我認為他們遇到了兩個問題。一是他們首先進行重構實際上是相當昂貴的。其次，一旦他們進行了重構並將所有內容都運行到公共雲中，並且他們開始大規模運營，我的意思是，這很容易上坡，對，從某種意義上說，前期非常容易，你喜歡這種輕鬆使用等等。

But then as you start using a lot of the services, then you start seeing your bill going up and you soon realize that there's a significant premium there compared to what you were doing before. And so that consciousness is now very much cost optimization is very much a key part of many of our customers thinking. And so now like I mentioned to Meta's question, there is definitely -- it's not a -- close to my eyes, so let me refactor everything more to the public cloud. That's no longer the conversation at all, right? I think it's much more about, okay, I'm going to have a process for figuring out what I'm going to go footwear. And in fact, I heard one customer mention that as they're establishing a target state architecture approach for every app that they have in their portfolio, and they're going to then decide what to do about that app. It is going to be running the data center. Does it make sense to refactor it et cetera. So I think people are being much more careful about managing their application portfolio now than they were before.

但是當你開始使用大量服務時，你會發現你的賬單在上漲，你很快就會意識到與你以前所做的相比，那裡有一個顯著的溢價。因此，現在意識非常多，成本優化是我們許多客戶思考的關鍵部分。所以現在就像我在 Meta 的問題中提到的那樣，我眼前肯定有——這不是——所以讓我將所有東西更多地重構到公共雲中。這根本不再是談話，對吧？我認為這更多的是，好吧，我將有一個過程來弄清楚我要穿什麼鞋。事實上，我聽到一位客戶提到，他們正在為他們產品組合中的每個應用程序建立目標狀態架構方法，然後他們將決定如何處理該應用程序。它將運行數據中心。重構它等是否有意義。所以我認為人們現在比以前更謹慎地管理他們的應用程序組合。

Got you. And then just as a quick follow-up on that. As I think about things like NC2 and VMware and AWS, the pushback that we always got on that as well, that's great and it's an easy lift and shift, but it's sort of a stop gap, right? Ultimately, you want to have the app refactored. And I guess if a customer does go that route and use NC2, what's the risk in your mind that refactoring is just sort of an inevitable step on that app and then potentially you lose the app?

明白了然後就此快速跟進。當我想到 NC2、VMware 和 AWS 之類的事情時，我們也總是遇到阻力，這很好，很容易提升和轉變，但這是一個權宜之計，對吧？最終，您希望重構該應用程序。我想如果客戶確實走那條路並使用 NC2，那麼在您看來，重構只是該應用程序上不可避免的一步，然後您可能會失去該應用程序的風險是什麼？

Yes. I think first of all, 2 points. Yes, customers can lift and ship and take it easily to the public cloud realization, no doubt about it. Now as the refactor and start creating a cloud-native version of the app, one of the things that's a little less understood about NC2 is that even in that scenario, we can actually help run that app very efficiently, right? Even for a pure cloud-native app, you can take our cloud native app that's been fully refactored and run it on NC2 on bad metal say, in AWS or Azure and get significant advantages, both in terms of potentially cost savings, but also in terms of ease of management, and the ability to have 1 team manage their on-prem and their cloud environments with a single set of tools. So those are sustainable.

是的。我認為首先，2點。是的，毫無疑問，客戶可以輕而易舉地將其運送並帶到公共雲實現中。現在，隨著重構並開始創建應用程序的雲原生版本，對 NC2 了解較少的一件事是，即使在那種情況下，我們實際上也可以幫助非常高效地運行該應用程序，對吧？即使對於純雲原生應用程序，您也可以採用我們已經完全重構的雲原生應用程序，並在 NC2 上運行它，比如在 AWS 或 Azure 中，並在潛在成本節約方面獲得顯著優勢，而且在在易於管理方面，以及讓一個團隊使用一套工具管理其本地和雲環境的能力。所以那些是可持續的。

We've also seen examples of where we can deliver depending on the application itself, quite substantial cost savings in terms of ongoing runtime costs as well. So that combination plus as we look at our future, when you look at things like Project Beacon, where people cannot build these cloud-native apps using affordable center data services, and then they can decide where they want to land them. So for us, we don't think of NC2 as a temporary, hey, migrate and then you're out of the picture. We actually think is migrate and operate. And if you also look at it from a cloud provider's perspective, if you're an AWS and Amazon or Azure, what you really care about is customers consuming our services. It doesn't matter whether they're using (inaudible) as long as those apps are running in the hyperscaler environment.

我們還看到了我們可以根據應用程序本身交付的示例，在持續運行時成本方面也節省了大量成本。因此，當我們展望未來時，這種組合加上 Project Beacon 之類的東西，人們無法使用負擔得起的中心數據服務來構建這些雲原生應用程序，然後他們可以決定將它們放置在哪裡。所以對我們來說，我們不認為 NC2 是臨時的，嘿，遷移然後你就出局了。我們實際上認為是遷移和操作。如果你也從雲提供商的角度來看，如果你是 AWS 和亞馬遜或 Azure，你真正關心的是客戶使用我們的服務。只要這些應用程序在超大規模環境中運行，他們是否使用（聽不清）並不重要。

So there's not a -- so this combination is what makes NC2 quite sticky over time.

所以沒有 - 所以這種組合使 NC2 隨著時間的推移變得非常粘。

Our next question comes from the line of Wamsi Mohan of Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Wamsi Mohan。

I was wondering if you could comment on demand maybe by vertical? Do you see anything different, particularly in financial services or government or health care this quarter? And what trends are you seeing currently in those verticals?

我想知道您是否可以按垂直需求評論？您是否看到本季度有什麼不同，特別是在金融服務或政府或醫療保健方面？您目前在這些垂直領域看到了哪些趨勢？

So yes, both financial services and health care are important verticals for us. I will say we have not seen any significant changes. I mean, I know people talk about what's been happening in the banking world. But we have not seen any significant changes in demand patterns. If anything from some of the larger banks, we are seeing more engagement now with us than before. And so nothing significant for us to report in terms of changes.

所以是的，金融服務和醫療保健對我們來說都是重要的垂直領域。我會說我們沒有看到任何重大變化。我的意思是，我知道人們在談論銀行界正在發生的事情。但我們沒有看到需求模式有任何重大變化。如果說一些較大的銀行有什麼不同的話，那就是我們現在看到與我們的接觸比以前更多。因此，就變化而言，我們沒有什麼重要的報告。

Okay. And as a follow-up, I mean, your gross margins, obviously very strong, but the broader demand environment is kind of weak and there are lots of pockets in the overall market that have gotten more competitive. And frankly, increased levels of discounting across many areas of the data center. So I was wondering if you saw any of those kind of trends. And if you didn't part take, did you leave revenue on the table or billings went table?

好的。作為後續行動，我的意思是，你的毛利率顯然非常強勁，但更廣泛的需求環境有點疲軟，整個市場中有很多地方變得更具競爭力。坦率地說，數據中心許多領域的折扣水平有所提高。所以我想知道你是否看到了這些趨勢中的任何一種。如果您沒有參與，您是將收入留在桌面上還是將賬單放在桌面上？

Yes. And of course, as you can imagine, we look at that very closely and manage that, and our ASPs have been quite steady. Part of the reason is most of our selling is the value sell. We look at -- we have a team of cloud economists who actually build economic models for almost any of the significant deals we have and talk about -- and showcase the TCO benefits that our customer gets by using our solution. And that's how we justify the pricing. So yes, of course, there's a competitive environment out there, but we haven't seen anything significant yet that's impacting our gross margins.

是的。當然，正如您可以想像的那樣，我們非常仔細地研究並管理它，我們的 ASP 一直非常穩定。部分原因是我們的大部分銷售都是價值銷售。我們著眼於——我們有一個雲經濟學家團隊，他們實際上為我們擁有和談論的幾乎所有重要交易建立經濟模型——並展示我們的客戶通過使用我們的解決方案獲得的 TCO 好處。這就是我們證明定價合理的方式。所以是的，當然，那裡有一個競爭環境，但我們還沒有看到任何影響我們毛利率的重大因素。

Okay. And if I could sneak one last one in. Can you maybe just help us think through what impact backlog drawdown is having on fiscal '23? And sort of what kind of a headwind that might pose for fiscal '24?

好的。如果我能偷偷最後一個。你能不能幫我們想一想積壓縮編對 23 財年的影響？什麼樣的逆風可能會對 24 財年造成影響？

I'll take that one. Thank you for the question, Wamsi. So I think as we've said from the beginning of this fiscal year, right, both revenue growth and ACV billings have benefited from the strong backlog level with which we entered the year. And revenue, specifically has also benefited from this dynamic of recognition of deferred license revenue from the future start date orders as we've talked about in the past, right? So the full year results, we expect will reflect a benefit from both of these Wamsi, but the logic as a software company, we don't typically kind of specify or guide to backlog or anything like that. But yes, entering this year, we did have a record level of backlog, which is benefiting growth for this year on both revenue and ACV billings.

我會拿那個。謝謝你的問題，Wamsi。因此，我認為正如我們從本財年開始時所說的那樣，收入增長和 ACV 賬單都受益於我們進入這一年的強勁積壓水平。正如我們過去談到的那樣，收入，特別是也受益於這種從未來開始日期訂單中確認遞延許可收入的動態，對嗎？因此，我們預計全年業績將反映這兩個 Wamsi 的收益，但作為一家軟件公司的邏輯，我們通常不會指定或指導積壓或類似的事情。但是，是的，進入今年，我們確實有創紀錄的積壓水平，這有利於今年收入和 ACV 賬單的增長。

Our next question comes from Dan Bergstrom of RBC Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Dan Bergstrom。

It's Dan Bergstrom for Matt Hedberg. Maybe to build on a previous question and the positive outlook despite some macros with guidance for the fourth quarter, did anything change around the level of conservatism in the outlook? Or are you using a consistent approach versus the third quarter?

我是 Dan Bergstrom for Matt Hedberg。也許基於先前的問題和積極的前景，儘管有一些宏觀指導第四季度，但圍繞前景的保守主義水平有什麼變化嗎？或者您是否使用與第三季度一致的方法？

Dan, I'll take that question. We have been pretty consistent in our approach. So we haven't necessarily become more or less conservative for Q4 as related to Q3, which I believe was your question. Did I get the question correctly?

丹，我來回答這個問題。我們的方法一直非常一致。因此，與第三季度相關的第四季度，我們不一定變得或多或少變得保守，我相信這是你的問題。我答對了嗎？

Yes. Perfect. And then maybe to verify on free cash flow for the fourth quarter from the prepared remarks. Sounds like there's a $31 million and $20 million outflow that may have been expected in the third quarter but will be in the fourth quarter. Is that correct?

是的。完美的。然後可能會根據準備好的評論來驗證第四季度的自由現金流。聽起來第三季度可能會出現 3100 萬美元和 2000 萬美元的資金流出，但第四季度會出現。那是對的嗎？

That is correct. And if I can just take a minute to maybe talk a little bit about Q4 free cash flow, right? So for the full year, we provided a guide of $125 to $135. And we also said that there is about $65 million of onetime outflow, right? So if you add that, you are now at a $190 million to $200 million free cash flow for the year. And that less the $150-or-so million that we've already done year-to-date would be a reasonable way to think about a normalized Q4 free cash flow with some normal quarter-to-quarter adjustments.

那是對的。如果我能花一點時間談談第四季度的自由現金流，對吧？因此，對於全年，我們提供了 125 美元至 135 美元的指導價。而且我們還說一次性流出大約有 6500 萬美元，對嗎？因此，如果你加上這一點，你現在的年度自由現金流量為 1.9 億至 2 億美元。減去我們年初至今已經完成的 150 萬美元左右，將是考慮正常化的第四季度自由現金流和一些正常的季度調整的合理方式。

Our next question comes from the line of Erik Suppiger of JMP Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 JMP Securities 的 Erik Suppiger。

Yes. And congrats on the quarter and the audit. With regards to the software compliance issue, can you tell us how you learned about that? And are you continuing to use the software from the 2 vendors that you had to do to work with on this?

是的。並祝賀季度和審計。關於軟件合規問題，您能告訴我們您是如何了解到的嗎？您是否繼續使用 2 家供應商的軟件來解決這個問題？

Yes. I think I can take that, Erik. So yes, we discovered it, management discovered it, and (inaudible) software purchase review. And yes, we are continuing to use the software. But again, for the (inaudible) that we talked about.

是的。我想我可以接受，埃里克。所以是的，我們發現了它，管理層發現了它，並且（聽不清）軟件採購審查。是的，我們將繼續使用該軟件。但同樣，對於我們談到的（聽不清）。

And the only thing I would add is we are in contact with both of those vendors at this time and are working towards a commercial resolution.

我唯一要補充的是，我們目前正在與這兩家供應商聯繫，並正在努力達成商業解決方案。

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

謝謝。我現在沒有進一步的問題。女士們，先生們，今天的會議到此結束。謝謝大家的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。祝你有美好的一天。