Progress Software Corp (PRGS) 2024 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day and welcome to the Progress Software Corporation Q2 2024 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，歡迎參加 Progress Software Corporation 2024 年第二季財報電話會議。 （操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Mike Micciche, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我想將會議交給您的發言人，投資者關係高級副總裁 Mike Micciche 先生。請繼續。

Thank you, Shuri. Thanks for your help. Always good to hear your voice.

謝謝你，舒裡。感謝您的協助。總是很高興聽到你的聲音。

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us for Progress' second-quarter 2024 financial results conference call. On the line with me this afternoon is Yogesh Gupta, our President and CEO; and Anthony Folger, our Chief Financial Officer.

大家下午好，感謝您參加 Progress 2024 年第二季財務業績電話會議。今天下午和我一起在線的是我們的總裁兼首席執行官 Yogesh Gupta；和我們的財務長安東尼福爾格。

Before we get started, let's go over the Safe Harbor Statement. During this call, we will discuss our outlook for future financial and operating performance, corporate strategies, product plans, cost initiatives, and other information that might be considered forward looking. Such forward-looking information represents Progress Software's outlook and guidance only as of today and is subject to risks and uncertainties.

在開始之前，讓我們先回顧一下安全港聲明。在本次電話會議中，我們將討論對未來財務和營運績效的展望、公司策略、產品計劃、成本計劃以及其他可能被視為前瞻性的資訊。此類前瞻性資訊僅代表 Progress Software 截至目前的展望和指導，並存在風險和不確定性。

For a description of the risk factors that may affect our results, please refer to the risk factors in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Progress Software assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements included in this call.

有關可能影響我們業績的風險因素的說明，請參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中的風險因素。 Progress Software 不承擔更新本次電話會議中所包含的前瞻性聲明的義務。

Additionally, please note that all the financial figures referenced on this call are non-GAAP, unless otherwise indicated. You can find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP figures in our financial results press release, which was issued after the market closed today. This document contains additional information related to our financial results for the second quarter of 2024, and I recommend you reference it for specific details.

此外，請注意，除非另有說明，本次電話會議中引用的所有財務數據均非公認會計原則。您可以在今天收盤後發布的財務績效新聞稿中找到這些非公認會計原則財務指標與最直接可比較的公認會計原則數據的調節表。本文件包含與我們 2024 年第二季度財務業績相關的其他信息，我建議您參考它以了解具體詳細信息。

We also have prepared a presentation that contains supplemental data for our second quarter of 2024 results, providing highlights and additional financial metrics. Both the earnings release and the supplemental presentation are available in the investor relations section of our website at investors.progress.com.

我們也準備了一份演示文稿，其中包含 2024 年第二季業績的補充數據，提供要點和其他財務指標。收益報告和補充簡報均可在我們網站 Investors.progress.com 的投資者關係部分取得。

As Shuri mentioned, today's conference call will be recorded in its entirety and it will be available via replay on the Investor Relations website after the call concludes.

正如 Shuri 所提到的，今天的電話會議將被完整記錄，電話會議結束後將在投資者關係網站上重播。

So with that, Yogesh, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you.

因此，Yogesh，我將把它交給你。謝謝。

Thank you, Mike. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us as we discuss the results of our second fiscal quarter of 2024. As you've seen in the press release, Progress posted solid results for Q2, with revenues and earnings well ahead of the higher end of guidance and estimates.

謝謝你，麥克。大家晚上好，感謝您加入我們，我們將討論2024 年第二財季的業績。公司。

Total revenue came in at $175 million, driven once again by steady demand and solid execution. Operating margins were above 38%, and earnings per share at $1.09 exceeded the high end of our guidance by $0.12 as a result of the strong revenue performance and good expense control. ARR grew 1% in the quarter to $579 million, and we saw a fractional increase in our net retention rate, which was 99%.

在穩定的需求和紮實的執行的推動下，總收入達到 1.75 億美元。由於強勁的收入表現和良好的費用控制，營業利潤率超過 38%，每股收益 1.09 美元，比我們指導的上限高出 0.12 美元。本季 ARR 成長 1%，達到 5.79 億美元，我們的淨留存率略有增加，達到 99%。

Our balance sheet continues to benefit from very strong cash flows and solid collections, ending the quarter with cash at $190 million and DSOs at 41 days, which is down from 50 days last quarter. We also repurchased around 1 million shares in the quarter, and we still have $122 million remaining under our overall repurchase authorization.

我們的資產負債表繼續受益於非常強勁的現金流和可靠的收款，本季末現金為 1.9 億美元，DSO 期限為 41 天，低於上季的 50 天。本季我們也回購了約 100 萬股股票，整體回購授權仍剩餘 1.22 億美元。

Anthony, of course, will provide much more detail around the numbers, but I'm very pleased with our performance in Q2. As we cross the halfway point for fiscal '24, I believe we are well-positioned for the rest of the year and feel confident in our ability to continue executing on our plan. Reflecting this confidence, we have raised our full-year expectations for revenues and earnings.

當然，安東尼會提供有關數字的更多細節，但我對我們在第二季度的表現非常滿意。當我們跨過 24 財年的中點時，我相信我們在今年剩餘時間處於有利位置，並對我們繼續執行計劃的能力充滿信心。為了反映這種信心，我們上調了全年收入和獲利預期。

During the second quarter, Anthony, Mike, and I spent a lot of time talking with investors. Our meetings were excellent, and it was good to be back seeing people face to face on a regular basis. There were three recurring themes: the first being AI, the second M&A and the third MOVEit. So I'd like to discuss each of these today.

在第二季度，安東尼、麥克和我花了很多時間與投資者交談。我們的會議非常精彩，能夠定期與人們面對面交流真是太好了。三個反覆出現的主題：第一個是人工智慧，第二個是併購，第三個是MOVEit。所以今天我想逐一討論。

Starting with AI. We're extremely excited about all of the AI work going on at Progress. The core of our AI strategy is threefold. First, we continue to add capabilities to our products so that our customers can develop, deploy, and manage responsible AI-driven applications and experiences. Our products help customers accelerate their AI journeys by providing the tools and technologies to build GenAI into their applications and to use AI-driven technologies to meet the needs of their business.

從人工智慧開始。我們對 Progress 正在進行的所有人工智慧工作感到非常興奮。我們人工智慧戰略的核心有三個面向。首先，我們不斷為我們的產品添加功能，以便我們的客戶能夠開發、部署和管理負責任的人工智慧驅動的應用程式和體驗。我們的產品透過提供工具和技術將 GenAI 建置到他們的應用程式中並使用人工智慧驅動的技術來滿足他們的業務需求，幫助客戶加速他們的人工智慧之旅。

Second, we're using AI to make our products easier to use and to drive tremendous efficiencies for our customers in their process of building, deploying, and managing experiences and applications. So embedding AI in our tools makes their job even easier. And third, we use AI internally to improve our own processes and operations, to enable us to better serve our customers while driving efficiencies in our business.

其次，我們使用人工智慧使我們的產品更易於使用，並在客戶建置、部署和管理體驗和應用程式的過程中提高效率。因此，將人工智慧嵌入我們的工具中可以讓他們的工作變得更加輕鬆。第三，我們在內部使用人工智慧來改善我們自己的流程和運營，使我們能夠更好地服務客戶，同時提高我們的業務效率。

[Newness] Progress products offer advanced AI features and we're receiving positive feedback from our customers. Let me share some examples. Our new Progress data platform, which is a result of integrating MarkLogic as well as Progress technologies, features both semantic and vector capabilities to power RAG, or Retrieval Augmented Generation, in AI applications.

[新奇] Progress 產品提供先進的人工智慧功能，我們收到了客戶的正面回饋。讓我分享一些例子。我們新的 Progress 資料平台是整合 MarkLogic 和 Progress 技術的結果，具有語義和向量功能，可為 AI 應用中的 RAG（即檢索增強生成）提供支援。

It also uses a semantic layer to validate the output of GenAI models. And the platform provides contextual links to corporate information and knowledge within the responses. So users can see where the answers came from, what they mean, and how they are relevant to the business.

它還使用語義層來驗證 GenAI 模型的輸出。該平台在回復中提供了企業資訊和知識的上下文連結。這樣使用者就可以看到答案的來源、它們的意義以及它們與業務的相關性。

This drives dramatically better results of GenAI-powered responses and minimizes AI hallucinations. And it does so with a level of governance and auditability organizations need for their critical enterprise applications. And that's why a global chemical company and a large financial services company are realizing significant ROI by using these capabilities today.

這極大地提高了 GenAI 驅動的反應結果，並最大限度地減少了人工智慧的幻覺。它透過組織關鍵企業應用程式所需的治理和可審核性層級來實現這一點。這就是為什麼一家全球化學公司和一家大型金融服務公司如今透過使用這些功能實現了顯著的投資報酬率。

In our developer tools products, we offer UI components for easily embedding AI prompts and creating an AI-powered user experience for GenAI applications. Our Sitefinity product uses GenAI capabilities to enable marketers to rapidly create, improve, and personalize website content, saving content editors' tremendous time. Sitefinity also offers AI-powered conversion Propensity Scoring to make it easy to determine which customer segments are most likely to convert with which messages, dramatically improving the outcomes of targeting efforts.

在我們的開發工具產品中，我們提供 UI 元件，可輕鬆嵌入 AI 提示並為 GenAI 應用程式建立 AI 支援的使用者體驗。我們的 Sitefinity 產品使用 GenAI 功能，使行銷人員能夠快速創建、改進和個人化網站內容，從而節省內容編輯者的大量時間。 Sitefinity 還提供人工智慧驅動的轉化傾向評分，可以輕鬆確定哪些客戶群最有可能透過哪些訊息進行轉化，從而顯著改善定位工作的結果。

An event marketing company is using this capability to do just that, grow audiences at events. And for infrastructure security customers, The AI-powered version of Flowmon for anomaly detection helps cybersecurity professionals and IT operations managers detect, understand, prioritize, and respond to potential security events faster than ever before. This capability, now being used by over a thousand cybersecurity experts at our customer sites, is demonstrating a greater than 50% reduction in the time it takes to analyze possible threat events. Thereby significantly increasing the responsiveness of those organizations while making them even more efficient at the same time.

一家活動行銷公司正在利用此功能來做到這一點，增加活動中的受眾。對於基礎設施安全客戶來說，用於異常檢測的 AI 驅動的 Flowmon 版本可協助網路安全專業人員和 IT 營運經理比以往更快地偵測、理解、確定優先順序並回應潛在的安全事件。目前，我們客戶網站的 1000 多名網路安全專家正在使用此功能，結果顯示分析可能的威脅事件所需的時間減少了 50% 以上。從而顯著提高這些組織的反應能力，同時提高它們的效率。

Going forward, we'll share more about how we're continuing to incorporate AI into our products. We're incredibly excited about the value we're providing to our customers today and what we can provide tomorrow by enabling them to build AI-powered applications and experiences. And we're thrilled to see the value we are driving for progress internally with more efficient and effective AI-powered operational systems and processes.

展望未來，我們將分享更多有關如何繼續將人工智慧融入我們的產品的資訊。我們對今天為客戶提供的價值以及我們明天可以透過幫助他們建立人工智慧驅動的應用程式和體驗而提供的東西感到非常興奮。我們很高興看到我們透過更有效率、更有效的人工智慧驅動的作業系統和流程在內部推動進步的價值。

Another topic we discussed often with investors was M&A, which remains at the core of our total growth strategy. Our investors trust us to remain patient and disciplined, making sure that any deal we do meets our stringent financial criteria. We have reviewed many companies and continue to do so, looking for the right deal for progress.

我們經常與投資者討論的另一個主題是併購，它仍然是我們整體成長策略的核心。我們的投資者相信我們會保持耐心和紀律，確保我們所做的任何交易都符合我們嚴格的財務標準。我們已經審查了許多公司，並將繼續這樣做，尋找合適的交易以取得進展。

If you recall last quarter's earnings announcement, we included a press release that stated that we were in the process of due diligence for the potential acquisition of an Irish public company, MariaDB. Because we have to abide by Irish takeover rules, which mandate that all steps of any proposed acquisition must be disclosed publicly, everyone got to see parts of our corporate development process and action. And it was a good illustration of some of what we go through every day.

如果您還記得上季的財報公告，我們發布了一份新聞稿，其中指出我們正在對可能收購愛爾蘭上市公司 MariaDB 進行盡職調查。因為我們必須遵守愛爾蘭收購規則，該規則要求任何擬議收購的所有步驟都必須公開揭露，所以每個人都可以看到我們公司發展流程和行動的部分內容。這很好地說明了我們每天所經歷的一些事情。

We've had a steady flow of acquisition candidates, and at all times, there are numerous potential transactions we're exploring in various stages of viability. We continue to be positive about the M&A environment and our ability to find the right deals. And through diligent and disciplined M&A, which is a key pillar of our total growth strategy, we are confident that we'll deliver on doubling the size of our business in five years.

我們擁有源源不絕的收購候選者，而且在任何時候，我們都在各個可行性階段探索大量潛在交易。我們對併購環境和尋找合適交易的能力繼續持積極態度。透過勤奮和嚴格的併購（這是我們整體成長策略的關鍵支柱），我們有信心在五年內將業務規模擴大一倍。

A third consistent theme that came up was, of course, MOVEit. Last month, we passed the one-year anniversary of the adapt on our customers' MOVEit environment. It is important to note that the business has remained solid. MOVEit ARR has grown over that period. Customers continue to be pleased with the way we've been working with them.

第三個一致的主題當然是 MOVEit。上個月，我們慶祝了客戶 MOVEit 環境適應一週年。值得注意的是，該業務一直保持穩健。 MOVEit ARR 在此期間不斷增長。客戶對我們與他們的合作方式繼續感到滿意。

We previously disclosed that two international data protection agencies closed their investigations of progress and the MOVEit incident without taking any regulatory action, the UK in last November and Australia in March.

我們之前披露過，英國和澳洲這兩個國際資料保護機構在沒有採取任何監管行動的情況下結束了對進展和 MOVEit 事件的調查。

Recently, on May 29, the Spanish Data Protection Authority also informed us that no regulatory action against Progress was required in relation to the MOVEit vulnerability. We continue to cooperate with regulators in a transparent manner because we're confident that Progress acted appropriately and with the interest of our customers at the forefront in our response to the attack on their MOVEit environment.

最近，5月29日，西班牙資料保護局也通知我們，無需針對MOVEit漏洞對Progress採取監管行動。我們繼續以透明的方式與監管機構合作，因為我們相信 Progress 在應對 MOVEit 環境遭受的攻擊時採取了適當的行動，並將客戶的利益放在首位。

We remain grateful for the support of our customers, partners, and employees, and remain focused on executing our total growth strategy. So to wrap up, Q2 was another solid quarter for Progress, marked by a continuation of good demand and outstanding execution in the field and internally. Our intense and unrelenting focus on customer success continues to provide Progress with a strong, durable base of recurring revenues.

我們仍然感謝客戶、合作夥伴和員工的支持，並繼續專注於執行我們的整體成長策略。總而言之，第二季度是 Progress 又一個穩健的季度，其特點是持續良好的需求以及現場和內部的出色執行力。我們對客戶成功的強烈和不懈的關注繼續為 Progress 提供強大、持久的經常性收入基礎。

I'm very pleased with the performance in ARR and net retention, along with our significant cash generation. Once again, our outlook remains positive. We continue to be optimistic about the potential for M&A, which remains our key strategic priority. When we find the right candidate at the right price, we will execute.

我對 ARR 和淨保留率的表現以及我們大量的現金產生感到非常滿意。我們的前景再次保持樂觀。我們繼續對併購潛力持樂觀態度，這仍然是我們的關鍵策略重點。當我們以合適的價格找到合適的候選人時，我們就會執行。

Lastly, before I close, I want to mention that earlier this month, the Boston Business Journal recognized Progress for the fourth consecutive year as one of the best places to work in the Boston area. In addition, Forbes in Bulgaria recently recognized progress on its list of best employers in that country.

最後，在結束之前，我想提一下，本月早些時候，《波士頓商業雜誌》連續第四年將 Progress 評為波士頓地區最佳工作場所之一。此外，保加利亞《福布斯》最近承認該國最佳雇主名單上取得了進展。

While we often discuss our commitment to our customers, these recognitions also demonstrate our commitment to our employees. And I'm really proud of our work environment, our culture, and our people. As always, I want to thank everyone at Progress for their hard work and consistent above and beyond efforts that led to yet another solid quarterly performance.

雖然我們經常討論我們對客戶的承諾，但這些認可也反映了我們對員工的承諾。我對我們的工作環境、文化和員工感到非常自豪。一如既往，我要感謝 Progress 的每個人的辛勤工作和持續不斷的努力，從而帶來了另一個穩健的季度業績。

Let me now hand it off to Anthony for his prepared remarks. Anthony?

現在讓我把準備好的發言交給安東尼。安東尼？

Thanks, Yogesh, and good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. As Yogesh mentioned, we're very pleased with our Q2 results, which again, exceeded the high end of our guidance range on revenue and earnings per share.

謝謝約格甚，大家晚上好。感謝您加入通話。正如 Yogesh 所提到的，我們對第二季的業績非常滿意，這再次超出了我們收入和每股盈餘指引範圍的上限。

Turning to the numbers, we'll start on the top line with ARR. We closed the second quarter with ARR of $579 million, which represents approximately 1% growth on a year-over-year basis. Although no single product drove material growth in our total ARR, the 1% growth that we delivered was the result of modest growth in multiple products across our portfolio including OpenEdge, DevTools, Sitefinity, Loadmaster, Flowmon, and MOVEit.

轉向數字，我們將從最上面一行的 ARR 開始。第二季末，我們的 ARR 為 5.79 億美元，年成長約 1%。儘管沒有單一產品推動我們的總 ARR 大幅成長，但我們實現的 1% 成長是我們產品組合中多個產品適度成長的結果，包括 OpenEdge、DevTools、Sitefinity、Loadmaster、Flowmon 和 MOVEit。

We also had another strong quarter for net retention with our Q2 rates coming in at 99%. In addition to our solid ARR growth, revenue for the quarter of $175 million was well above the high end of the guidance range we provided back in March. This better-than-expected revenue performance in the quarter was driven by stronger than anticipated demand for multiple products in our portfolio including OpenEdge, DataDirect, and MarkLogic.

我們的淨保留率也表現強勁，第二季的淨保留率達到 99%。除了我們穩健的 ARR 成長之外，該季度的營收為 1.75 億美元，遠高於我們 3 月提供的指導範圍的上限。本季營收表現優於預期，是由於對我們產品組合中多種產品（包括 OpenEdge、DataDirect 和 MarkLogic）的需求強於預期推動的。

Turning now to expenses. Our total costs and operating expenses for the quarter were $108 million, down 4% compared to the prior year, and generally in line with our expectations. The year-over-year decrease in expense was largely because our integration of MarkLogic was ongoing in Q2 of last year. And now that the integration is complete and cost synergies have been realized, we're operating at a lower cost base.

現在轉向費用。本季我們的總成本和營運費用為 1.08 億美元，比上年下降 4%，整體符合我們的預期。費用年減主要是因為我們去年第二季正在進行 MarkLogic 整合。現在整合已經完成並且成本協同效應已經實現，我們正在以更低的成本基礎運作。

Operating income was $67 million, consistent with the prior-year quarter, and our operating margin was over 38%, compared to 38% in the second quarter of 2023. On the bottom line, our Q2 earnings per share of $1.09 is $0.12 above the high end of our guidance range. This overperformance relative to our expectation was driven by outstanding top-line performance coupled with solid cost management across the business.

營業收入為6,700 萬美元，與去年同期一致，營業利潤率超過38%，而2023 年第二季為38%。高出0.12 美元。這種超出我們預期的表現是由出色的營收業績以及整個業務的可靠成本管理所推動的。

Moving on now to a few balance sheet and cash flow metrics, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $190 million and debt of $810 million for a net debt position of $620 million. This represents net leverage of roughly 2.2 times using our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA and roughly 2.0 times using our projected results for the full fiscal year 2024. DSO for the quarter was a bit ahead of our expectations at 41 days, an improvement from 50 days last quarter.

現在來看一些資產負債表和現金流量指標，本季結束時，我們的現金和現金等價物為 1.9 億美元，債務為 8.1 億美元，淨負債部位為 6.2 億美元。使用我們過去12 個月調整後EBITDA 計算得出的淨槓桿率約為2.2 倍，使用我們對2024 年整個財政年度的預測結果計算得出的淨槓桿率約為2.0 倍。天，略高於我們的預期，較50 天有所改善。

Adjusted free cash flow was $64 million for the quarter, an increase of $16 million, or 33%, from the prior-year quarter. I'd also like to point out that our adjusted free cash flow for the first half of fiscal 2024 stands at $136 million, which is an increase of 44% over the same period last year.

本季調整後自由現金流為 6,400 萬美元，比去年同期增加 1,600 萬美元，成長 33%。我還想指出的是，我們2024財年上半年調整後的自由現金流為1.36億美元，比去年同期成長了44%。

During the second quarter, we repurchased $50 million of Progress stock, including $25 million in connection with the issuance of our convertible notes in March. At the end of the quarter, we had $122 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization.

第二季度，我們回購了 5,000 萬美元的 Progress 股票，其中包括與 3 月發行的可轉換票據相關的 2,500 萬美元。截至本季末，我們目前的股票回購授權剩餘 1.22 億美元。

All right. Now I'd like to turn to our outlook for Q3 and the full-year 2024. When considering our outlook, we continue to see consistent strength in the demand environment for our solutions. And for the third quarter, we expect revenue between $174 million and $178 million and earnings per share of between $1.11 and $1.15.

好的。現在我想談談我們對第三季和 2024 年全年的展望。對於第三季度，我們預計營收在 1.74 億美元至 1.78 億美元之間，每股收益在 1.11 美元至 1.15 美元之間。

For the full-year 2024, we expect revenue between $725 million and $735 million, an increase of $3 million from our prior guidance. We expect an operating margin of 39% to 40%, consistent with our prior guidance. We expect adjusted free cash flow between $205 million and $215 million, again, consistent with our prior guidance. And we expect earnings per share of between $4.70 and $4.80, an increase of $0.05 from our prior guidance.

對於 2024 年全年，我們預計收入在 7.25 億美元至 7.35 億美元之間，比我們先前的指導增加 300 萬美元。我們預計營業利潤率為 39% 至 40%，與我們先前的指導一致。我們預計調整後的自由現金流將在 2.05 億美元至 2.15 億美元之間，再次與我們先前的指導一致。我們預計每股收益將在 4.70 美元至 4.80 美元之間，比我們之前的指導增加 0.05 美元。

Our annual EPS estimate contemplates a tax rate of 20%, approximately 44.2 million shares outstanding and the impact of $103 million in share repurchases. It's worth mentioning that the $103 million in expected share repurchases represents an increase from the $78 million that I noted on our last earnings call.

我們的年度每股盈餘預估考慮了 20% 的稅率、約 4,420 萬股流通股以及 1.03 億美元的股票回購影響。值得一提的是，預計股票回購額為 1.03 億美元，較我上次財報電話會議上指出的 7,800 萬美元有所增加。

In closing, we're excited to deliver strong financial results across the Board in the second quarter. It's a continuation of the trend that we saw in the first quarter, and we believe we're very well positioned to deliver strong results for the remainder of 2024 and beyond.

最後，我們很高興能夠在第二季全面實現強勁的財務表現。這是我們在第一季看到的趨勢的延續，我們相信我們完全有能力在 2024 年剩餘時間及以後交付強勁的業績。

With that, I'd like to open the call for Q&A. Thank you.

至此，我想開始問答環節。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions) Fatima Boolani, Citi.

（操作員指示）Fatima Boolani，花旗銀行。

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Yogesh, I wanted to double click on one of your comments in your script regarding what you're doing from an AI perspective and infusing those capabilities within your portfolio.

午安.感謝您回答我的問題。 Yogesh，我想雙擊您腳本中的一條評論，了解您從人工智慧的角度所做的事情，並將這些功能融入您的投資組合中。

But you also made a mention that you are internally deploying AI-powered operational systems, I think is the terminology that we use. We haven't heard many companies talk about this, so I'd be really curious to get your granular views on how AI is perhaps creating more expense leverage or operating leverage in the business and how much of that is sustainable and durable and expandable. And then a follow-up for Anthony if I may.

但您也提到您正在內部部署人工智慧驅動的作業系統，我認為這是我們使用的術語。我們還沒有聽到很多公司談論這個問題，所以我真的很想知道您對人工智慧如何在業務中創造更多費用槓桿或營運槓桿以及其中有多少是可持續、持久和可擴展的詳細看法。如果可以的話，然後是安東尼的後續行動。

Thanks, Fatima. So we are actually using -- and I think we, like many others, are probably in early stages of using this, but we are using AI fairly extensively across a wide range of functions. So let me share a few examples.

謝謝，法蒂瑪。所以我們實際上正在使用——我認為我們和許多其他人一樣，可能正處於使用它的早期階段，但我們在廣泛的功能中相當廣泛地使用人工智慧。讓我分享幾個例子。

We are using, of course, AI in content creation. So as I'm sure you can relate to this, the role of content creation and marketing is critical. Marketing is always behind the curve on trying to figure out how quickly they can get targeted content for audiences that we want to target our marketing messages to.

當然，我們在內容創作中使用人工智慧。我相信您也能體會到這一點，內容創作和行銷的角色至關重要。行銷總是落後於試圖弄清楚他們能以多快的速度為我們想要定位的行銷訊息的受眾提供有針對性的內容。

And by leveraging AI, we are seeing significant improvements in the speed with which we can turn around content and be responsive to the needs of the business. So in a lot of these things, Fatima, it's not just sort of trying to get operational efficiencies from a cost perspective. It is also timeliness of responses, accuracy of responses, more effective content, for example, and so on.

透過利用人工智慧，我們發現內容週轉和響應業務需求的速度顯著提高。因此，法蒂瑪，在很多事情中，這不僅僅是試圖從成本角度提高營運效率。例如，還包括回應的及時性、回應的準確性、更有效的內容等等。

Another area is, this is an interesting one from the perspective of tech support and dealing with our customer support issues. Very often technical folks will answer questions. And then what we want to do is of course create knowledge-based articles that other customers for that particular question could find it automatically. And so that they don't have to talk to somebody.

另一個領域是，從技術支援和處理客戶支援問題的角度來看，這是一個有趣的領域。很多時候技術人員會回答問題。當然，我們想要做的是創建基於知識的文章，以便其他客戶可以針對該特定問題自動找到它。這樣他們就不必與別人交談。

Now that's a laborious task; nobody really enjoys doing it as much. Again, we're using generative AI to automatically generate a knowledge-based article that then is edited and reviewed by the technical person who has answered the question to begin with, and thereby, again, simplifying and reducing the time it takes for that to be created. We're seeing, for example, in that scenario, 50% to 75% improvement in the responsiveness, how quickly we can get knowledge-based articles created for a particular issue.

這是一項艱鉅的任務；沒有人真正喜歡這樣做。同樣，我們使用生成式人工智慧自動產生基於知識的文章，然後由首先回答問題的技術人員進行編輯和審閱，從而再次簡化並減少了完成該文章所需的時間。例如，我們看到，在這種情況下，回應能力提高了 50% 到 75%，我們可以多快為特定問題創建基於知識的文章。

We are at the early stages of looking to apply GenAI to really analyzing our customer contracts. I mean, the opportunities are, to be honest, quite endless. And we are also deploying the Progress data platform internally as well, for example, the legal contract review process and other things, so that we can leverage internal corporate data.

我們正處於尋求應用 GenAI 來真正分析我們的客戶合約的早期階段。我的意思是，老實說，機會是無窮無盡的。我們也在內部部署Progress資料平台，例如法律合約審核流程等，這樣我們就可以利用企業內部的資料。

One of the most key challenges with using AI today is how do you make sure that your information, your knowledge, your data stays secure, stays private, is governable, while at the same time you take advantage of LLMs and other AI technologies. And our data platform is actually designed to do just that. And so therefore, to us, being able to also use our own products and demonstrate that we can use them and we can be beneficiaries as well is also important.

當今使用人工智慧面臨的最關鍵挑戰之一是如何確保您的資訊、知識、資料保持安全、私密、可控，同時利用法學碩士和其他人工智慧技術。我們的數據平台實際上就是為了做到這一點而設計的。因此，對我們來說，能夠使用我們自己的產品並證明我們可以使用它們並且我們也可以成為受益者也很重要。

Early to say, Fatima, in terms of expense reductions and sustainability, but as we get data on those, we will come back and share that.

法蒂瑪，在費用削減和可持續性方面，早說，但當我們獲得這些數據時，我們會回來分享。

I appreciate that very detailed answer, Yogesh, and I'd like to hear that you're drinking your own champagne. Anthony, just on the maintenance and services performance in the quarter, it was certainly much better than what we were modeling and then what most folks were looking for. Wanted to ask if there's anything atypical or outsized to highlight here vis-a-vis any early renewals or timing of any contractual relationships in renewals. That's it for me. Thank you.

我很欣賞這個非常詳細的答案，Yogesh，我想聽聽你正在喝自己的香檳。安東尼，僅就本季的維護和服務績效而言，它肯定比我們建模的以及大多數人所尋求的要好得多。想問一下，與任何早期續約或續約中任何合約關係的時間安排相比，是否有任何非典型或特大的事情需要強調。對我來說就是這樣。謝謝。

Yeah. Fatima, I think it was a reasonably good quarter from a renewals perspective. We did see a slight improvement in our net retention rates. And we saw -- if you were to look at the sequential movement in ARR, there was a nice uptick from Q1 to Q2.

是的。法蒂瑪，我認為從續約的角度來看，這是一個相當不錯的季度。我們確實看到我們的淨保留率略有改善。我們看到，如果你觀察 ARR 的連續變化，你會發現從第一季到第二季有一個不錯的上升。

And so it just felt like a slightly better quarter across the board when it came to renewal and net retention rates. So I would say nothing that looked like an anomaly, nothing really from a timing perspective that would have driven an outsized performance on the maintenance and service lines.

因此，在續訂率和淨保留率方面，整個季度感覺稍微好一些。因此，我不會說任何看起來異常的事情，從時間角度來看，沒有什麼真正會推動維護和服務線的超常表現。

Thank you so much.

太感謝了。

Pinjalim Bora, JPMorgan.

平賈林·博拉，摩根大通。

Great. Hey guys. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the quarter. One question for you, Yogesh. The MarkLogic acquisition, has that expanded? Would you say it has expanded your opportunity within the GenAI RAG-based use cases? Is the intensity of those conversations with your existing customer base increasing as they think about building GenAI workloads? And how does that compare to something like a Mongo or Elastic?

偉大的。大家好。感謝您提出問題並祝賀本季。尤格甚，有個問題想問你。 MarkLogic 的收購規模是否擴大了？您是否認為它擴大了您在基於 GenAI RAG 的用例中的機會？當您的現有客戶群考慮建立 GenAI 工作負載時，與他們的對話強度是否會增加？與 Mongo 或 Elastic 之類的東西相比如何？

Yeah, so thank you, Pinjalim. And a short answer is yes. I'll give you a slightly longer answer as well. MarkLogic acquisition definitely brought us -- and by integrating it with some of our own data platform technologies, data integration and then intelligent decisioning technologies, that combination has created a really powerful solution to apply RAG, both from a semantic analysis perspective, as well as vector, to really make GenAI applications much more accurate, much less error prone, minimize hallucinations, and also provide the governance and security around it that people are looking for.

是的，謝謝你，Pinjalim。簡短的回答是肯定的。我也會給你一個稍微長一點的答案。 MarkLogic 的收購無疑為我們帶來了——透過將其與我們自己的一些數據平台技術、數據集成以及智能決策技術相集成，這種組合創建了一個真正強大的應用RAG 的解決方案，無論是從語意分析的角度還是從向量，真正使 GenAI 應用程式更加準確，更不容易出錯，最大限度地減少幻覺，並提供人們正在尋找的治理和安全性。

So yes, and I think it really does create an opportunity for us to go back to our customers and work with them to make sure that they see that what we have and that they are able to actually leverage our offerings.

所以是的，我認為這確實為我們創造了一個機會，讓我們回到客戶身邊並與他們合作，以確保他們看到我們所擁有的東西，並且他們能夠真正利用我們的產品。

The interesting part about this, Pinjalim, is that mission-critical applications and business-critical applications leveraging GenAI is going to be a slow and longer process than folks think. It's easy to just sort of use an LLM for simple questions and answers, but really integrating it into your data, doing it in a methodical way, coming up with a real business use case, and then spending the money on it always takes time. But we are looking forward to doing that.

Pinjalim 的有趣之處在於，利用 GenAI 的任務關鍵型應用程式和業務關鍵型應用程式將是一個比人們想像的緩慢且更長的過程。使用法學碩士來解決簡單的問題和答案很容易，但真正將其整合到您的數據中，以有條不紊的方式進行，提出一個真正的業務用例，然後在上面花錢總是需要時間。但我們期待著這樣做。

As I mentioned in my comments earlier, we actually have a couple of customers who are actively using this today in production, which makes us really delighted that we have made that much progress so far. The question for us is, at what level are customers ready to adopt? And as that momentum builds, as we hope it does, we'll of course share details with you.

正如我之前在評論中提到的，我們實際上有一些客戶今天正在生產中積極使用它，這讓我們非常高興到目前為止我們已經取得瞭如此大的進展。我們面臨的問題是，客戶準備在什麼層級採用？隨著這種勢頭的增強，正如我們所希望的那樣，我們當然會與您分享詳細資訊。

Yeah, understood. One question for you, Anthony. The outperformance in Q2 -- I was looking at the outperformance of Q2 versus the Q3 guide. I'm wondering if there is anything to highlight in terms of timing of term renewal, did anything pull forward from Q3 to Q2? Anything to highlight there?

是的，明白了。安東尼，有個問題想問你。第二季的優異表現－我正在研究第二季與第三季指南的優異表現。我想知道在續約時間方面是否有什麼需要強調的地方，從第三季到第二季有什麼進展嗎？有什麼值得強調的地方嗎？

Hey, Pinjalim. No, I would say not really. Like I said, Q2 was a very solid quarter. It felt like, in terms of momentum, maybe a slight step up from where we were in Q1.

嘿，平賈利姆。不，我想說不是真的。正如我所說，第二季是一個非常穩定的季度。就勢頭而言，感覺可能比第一季略有進步。

I think last year, we definitely had some larger multi-year contracts that sort of moved some of the revenue around quarter to quarter. And obviously, we're just coming off the MarkLogic acquisition in Q1 of last year. But I think the outlook for Q3 and the results from Q2, I really don't think there was any material timing issues there.

我認為去年，我們肯定有一些較大的多年期合同，這在某種程度上使部分收入在季度與季度之間發生了變化。顯然，我們剛完成去年第一季對 MarkLogic 的收購。但我認為第三季的前景和第二季的結果，我真的不認為那裡有任何重大的時間問題。

Understood. Thank you.

明白了。謝謝。

John DiFucci, Guggenheim Securities.

約翰‧迪福奇，古根漢證券公司。

Thank you for taking my question. Both my question's I think, for Yogesh. Yogesh, we just published a note today saying that the IT spending backdrop isn't going to get any much better at all anytime soon. I guess two questions on that. If that's the case, how should we be thinking about Progress in regards to your business and also the potential acquisition opportunities?

感謝您回答我的問題。我認為我的兩個問題都是針對 Yogesh 的。 Yogesh，我們今天剛發布了一份報告，表示 IT 支出情況短期內不會有太大改善。我想有兩個問題。如果是這樣，我們應該如何考慮您的業務進度以及潛在的收購機會？

And the second part is, and this goes back as -- Yogesh I've known you a long, long time. I consider you a very seasoned executive. That's a complement. I can say that also because we're the same age. But I guess, like when you look at this, and you've seen a lot of different cycles, I mean there are secular tailwinds in IT, at least I believe that still. But when do you think the IT spending environment could get a bit better than it has been over the last couple of years based on your observations of the past? Sorry for the long-winded questions.

第二部分是，這可以追溯到—— Yogesh，我認識你很久很久了。我認為您是一位經驗豐富的主管。這就是一個補充。我能這麼說也是因為我們這年紀。但我想，就像當你看到這個時，你已經看到了很多不同的週期，我的意思是 IT 領域存在長期的順風，至少我仍然相信這一點。但根據您對過去的觀察，您認為 IT 支出環境何時會比過去幾年好一點？抱歉問了一些冗長的問題。

No, no, that's quite all right, John. I think seasoned is good with me. So it’s all right. The interesting part about the environment out there today -- and I'm speaking really for Progress, because you said, hey, what do you think about Progress.

不，不，沒關係，約翰。我認為經驗豐富的對我來說很好。所以沒關係。關於今天的環境的有趣部分 - 我真的是在為進步說話，因為你說，嘿，你對進步有什麼看法。

I actually think if you look back over the last few quarters, we have not actually been pounding the table saying, oh, man, amazing purse strings are going to get opened and money is going to flood in, right? There were lot of other people who expected that in 2024. We were very straightforward. We felt that there was a solid environment for our products and that we would continue to execute within that spending environment.

我實際上認為，如果你回顧過去幾個季度，我們實際上並沒有敲桌子說，哦，夥計，令人驚嘆的錢包將會打開，金錢將會湧入，對嗎？還有很多人預計 2024 年會出現這種情況。我們認為我們的產品有一個堅實的環境，我們將繼續在該支出環境中執行。

The interesting part about our products, John, is they are not nice to have products. They really are essential products. The vast majority of our business, as you know, is existing customers who are either expanding their relationship with us or renewing with us, et cetera.

約翰，我們的產品有趣的部分是它們並不好擁有產品。它們確實是必不可少的產品。如您所知，我們的絕大多數業務是現有客戶，他們要么擴大與我們的關係，要么與我們續約，等等。

And so therefore, our net retention rates or ARR that comes from our existing customers is the solid foundation on which we built. On top of that, we have some new acquisition that takes place, obviously, so that we get a little bit of ARR growth as we keep moving forward.

因此，來自現有客戶的淨保留率或 ARR 是我們賴以生存的堅實基礎。最重要的是，顯然，我們進行了一些新的收購，因此隨著我們不斷前進，我們的 ARR 有所增長。

So I think that the market for our products looks good. It isn't gangbusters, but it looks good. And I think it will continue to be very similar going forward for the next few quarters at least.

所以我認為我們產品的市場看起來不錯。雖然不是很火爆，但是看起來不錯。我認為至少在接下來的幾個季度，情況將繼續非常相似。

Large macro trends are changing. Even though I've been around the block a few times, every time I try to predict that, I'm usually wrong. So I don't want to try to do something this time around either. But I think that your point that I think we are in a secularly good but not gangbusters growth environment, I think it's probably true for some extended period.

大的宏觀趨勢正在改變。儘管我已經在街區裡轉了幾次，但每次我試圖預測時，我通常都是錯的。所以這次我也不想嘗試做些什麼。但我認為你的觀點是，我認為我們處於一個長期良好但並非強勁的成長環境，我認為在較長一段時間內這可能是正確的。

To be honest, there's a lot of technology catalysts that are happening, so to speak. But on the business side, people are being very cautious, and I think they will continue to be cautious. Again, I shouldn't do any macro stuff ever, but I think that interest rates are not coming down any time soon. I think people will be watchful on what they spend. I think they will spend on important stuff that is truly mission-critical, which makes me feel, again, good about our business.

老實說，可以說有很多技術催化劑正在發生。但在商業方面，人們非常謹慎，而且我認為他們將繼續保持謹慎。再說一次，我不應該做任何宏觀的事情，但我認為利率不會很快下降。我認為人們會注意自己的支出。我認為他們會花在真正關鍵任務的重要事情上，這讓我再次對我們的業務感到滿意。

So I'm sorry, John, I'm not really helping you with the long-term stuff. But you are asking me to go well beyond my abilities, so I'll stop talking.

所以我很抱歉，約翰，我並沒有真正幫助你處理長期的事情。但你要求我做的事情遠遠超出了我的能力範圍，所以我就不說了。

No, you're too modest, Yogesh. And that was very helpful. And I really appreciate it and keep up the good work. Thank you.

不，你太謙虛了，尤格甚。這非常有幫助。我真的很感激並繼續努力。謝謝。

Thank you, John. Thank you.

謝謝你，約翰。謝謝。

Ittai Kidron, Oppenheimer.

伊泰·基德倫，奧本海默。

Hey, guys. This is Harshil on for Ittai. Yogesh, just on the M&A front, just around the opportunities that the corporate development team may be vetting. Is the velocity of opportunities that you're looking at starting to pick up? What are you hearing from founders maybe both from VC-backed and PE-backed companies out there?

大家好。這是 Harshil 代表 Ittai 出場。 Yogesh，就在併購方面，就在企業開發團隊可能正在審查的機會方面。您正在尋找的機會的速度是否開始加快？您從創投支持和私募股權支持的公司創辦人那裡聽到了什麼？

And then, Yogesh -- sorry, Anthony, just one on the free cash flow guide. I know that was left unchanged. So if I just kind of look at the second-half free cash flow performance, it does imply a bit of a step down. So just wondering if you can give us any puts and takes on the outlook there. Thank you.

然後，尤格甚——抱歉，安東尼，只是自由現金流指南上的一個。我知道那沒有改變。因此，如果我只看一下下半年的自由現金流表現，它確實意味著有所下降。因此，我想知道您是否可以向我們提供有關該地區前景的看跌期權和看跌期權。謝謝。

So, Harshil, on the M&A side, yes, I believe that the pace is greater than it has previously been. I think it goes back to John's last question as well. I think the macro conditions being what they are, the market conditions being what they are, I think more and more folks out there are realizing that this is sort of the new normal. And therefore, I think more assets are coming to market today. And to be honest, more chunkier assets are coming to market today than they were before, whether it is PE-backed or VC-backed.

所以，Harshil，在併購方面，是的，我相信步伐比以前更快。我認為這也可以追溯到約翰的最後一個問題。我認為宏觀條件就是這樣，市場條件就是這樣，我認為越來越多的人意識到這是一種新常態。因此，我認為今天會有更多資產進入市場。老實說，今天比以前有更多更厚重的資產進入市場，無論是私募股權支持還是創投支持。

And so we are very active. I am delighted with the amount of activity we are seeing. We are in the deal flow. And I think that's a really important thing for me to share. We want to make sure that we are in the deal flow that is taking place out there so that we get to see and that we get to decide whether we are going to participate in something or not and to what level.

所以我們非常活躍。我對我們所看到的大量活動感到高興。我們正處於交易流程。我認為這對我來說非常重要，值得分享。我們希望確保我們處於正在發生的交易流程中，以便我們能夠看到並決定我們是否要參與某件事以及參與到什麼程度。

So Harshil, yes, I am much more excited about where the market appears to be shifting on M&A.

所以哈希爾，是的，我對市場在併購方面的轉變感到更加興奮。

And to answer your second question on free cash flow and the guide, I guess a couple of points I would make. One is, when we acquired MarkLogic, we had mentioned that they had a January 31 fiscal year-end and had a significant amount of billings and revenue in what would be our first quarter. And so from a cash flow perspective, I think what we're seeing now is Q4 is our biggest billings quarter, and then that's probably followed by Q1.

為了回答你關於自由現金流和指南的第二個問題，我想我會提出幾點。一個是，當我們收購 MarkLogic 時，我們曾提到他們的財年結束日期為 1 月 31 日，並且在我們的第一季有大量的帳單和收入。因此，從現金流的角度來看，我認為我們現在看到的是第四季度是我們最大的帳單季度，然後可能是第一季。

And so with 40- or 50-day DSO,s that means our big cash collection quarters end up being Q1 and Q2. And so we've seen a little bit more seasonality to the front half of the year, I think with the addition of MarkLogic.

因此，對於 40 天或 50 天的 DSO，這意味著我們的大型現金收款季度最終將是第一季和第二季。因此，我認為隨著 MarkLogic 的加入，今年上半年我們看到了更多的季節性。

The other thing to keep in mind is that our tax payments that we make are generally weighted towards the back half of the year. So I think you have some billings that have been sort of seasonally, the cash is going to get collected first half. And then we have some expenses where the seasonality is going to be in the second half, but nothing more than that.

另一件要記住的事情是，我們繳納的稅金通常會集中在下半年。所以我認為你有一些季節性的帳單，現金將在上半年收到。然後我們會在下半年產生一些季節性費用，但僅此而已。

I think it was a great first half of the year for us. In terms of cash flow, I think collections were very strong, kind of another indication of strength of our business and strength of our customer base when it comes to the essential nature of our products.

我認為今年上半年對我們來說是美好的。就現金流而言，我認為產品系列非常強勁，這在某種程度上表明了我們的業務實力和客戶群的實力，就我們產品的本質而言。

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you guys and congrats on the quarter.

知道了。很有幫助。謝謝你們，恭喜本季。

Thanks.

謝謝。

Lucky Schreiner, D.A. Davidson.

幸運施賴納，D.A.戴維森。

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to dig deeper on the M&A market, following up on the last question. I know you guys try to acquire about a company a year in terms of cadence. Can we maybe expect to see that cadence pick up here?

偉大的。感謝您提出我的問題。我想深入挖掘併購市場，跟進最後一個問題。我知道你們嘗試以一年的節奏收購一家公司。我們可以期待看到這種節奏在這裡加快嗎？

And in terms of MariaDB, I know that one didn't close, but it was smaller in terms of revenue size than normal or than your previous four acquisitions. Could we see maybe a higher frequency of smaller acquisitions here moving forward? Thanks.

就 MariaDB 而言，我知道它沒有關閉，但就收入規模而言，它比正常情況或之前的四次收購要小。我們能否看到未來更頻繁的小型收購？謝謝。

Lucky, thanks for the question. So I think I've said this before, and I'll repeat. I think from a operating perspective, from the way we run our business perspective, I do believe we can do more than one transaction in a year. It's not just doing the deal, right? The question is can we integrate it.

幸運的是，謝謝你的提問。所以我想我之前已經說過了，我會重複一次。我認為從營運的角度來看，從我們經營業務的方式來看，我確實相信我們可以在一年內完成不只一筆交易。這不只是做交易，對吧？問題是我們能否整合它。

And I think that's where over the last several years, as we've done these acquisitions and integrated them, I think we've gotten better and better and better at that. And so therefore, I believe that yes, we can acquire and integrate more than one business. That said, obviously, the market has to be such that deals do come up that we are really interested and excited about.

我認為這就是過去幾年中，隨著我們完成這些收購並整合它們，我認為我們在這方面做得越來越好。因此，我相信，是的，我們可以收購並整合不只一項業務。也就是說，顯然，市場必須能夠出現我們真正感興趣和興奮的交易。

In terms of the size, MariaDB was on the smaller size, but I think we've always said that our sweet spot is 10% to 20%, 10% to 25% of our revenue. MariaDB was slightly lighter than 10% of our revenue, but it was the right asset for us. I think, the size criteria, we are a little bit flexible on, but we, in general, are looking to buy businesses that obviously provide us with the ability to deliver some meaningful return to our shareholders.

就規模而言，MariaDB 規模較小，但我認為我們一直說我們的最佳點是收入的 10% 到 20%、10% 到 25%。 MariaDB 占我們收入的比例略低於 10%，但它對我們來說是正確的資產。我認為，在規模標準上，我們有點靈活，但總的來說，我們希望收購那些顯然能夠為我們的股東帶來一些有意義的回報的企業。

And so therefore, we are not going to do extremely tiny ones. They just are a lot of work for a very little return, to be honest. But at the same time, yes, we could do a deal of the size of MariaDB or one smaller, one larger or whatever. I mean, so we are actively looking. And yes, if the right opportunities come along, we will do more than one in a year.

因此，我們不會做非常小的專案。老實說，他們只是付出了很多努力，但回報卻很少。但同時，是的，我們可以做一筆與 MariaDB 大小相同的交易，或者更小、更大或其他什麼。我的意思是，我們正在積極尋找。是的，如果有合適的機會，我們一年內會做不只一個。

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And then a follow-up on some of your earlier comments on the AI capabilities and customers already getting an ROI from that. I think there's a discussion on how pricing for AI is going to look moving forward. What are your thoughts on how you're going to recognize? Are you just going to increase prices for customers in the future? Or how is that going to actually drive your revenue moving forward? Thanks.

這很有意義。謝謝。然後是您之前對人工智慧功能的一些評論的後續內容，以及客戶已經從中獲得了投資回報率。我認為人們正在討論人工智慧的定價未來將如何發展。您對於如何辨識有什麼想法？以後就只是為了給顧客漲價嗎？或者這將如何真正推動您的收入成長？謝謝。

Lucky, I think that's a really, really good question because I think we are all in this industry trying to figure out what is the best way for us to, as you yourself pointed out, price our products for the value we are generating, right? And in reality, with software historically has been, that pricing has been done by some metric that is sort of data or consumption or capacity or users or seats or servers or so whatever, right?

幸運的是，我認為這是一個非常非常好的問題，因為我認為我們這個行業都在試圖找出最好的方式，正如您自己指出的那樣，根據我們所產生的價值對我們的產品進行定價，對嗎？事實上，從歷史上看，軟體的定價是透過某種指標來完成的，這些指標是資料、消耗、容量、使用者、席位、伺服器等等，對嗎？

It is a measurable quantity on sort of some metrics that is very different. And something like this kind of capability, it really -- when you think about it, the business value is, if it is meaningful and significant, it often is not related to things like those.

這是一些非常不同的指標的可測量量。像這種能力之類的東西，真的——當你思考它時，商業價值是，如果它有意義且重要，它通常與諸如此類的事情無關。

So we, I think, are experimenting as I think the best answer I can give you because I think that is the honest answer. And I think that the business models for this are going to evolve over the coming year or two in our industry.

所以我認為我們正在嘗試，因為我認為我可以給你最好的答案，因為我認為這是誠實的答案。我認為，我們行業的商業模式將在未來一兩年內持續發展。

Now some products is easy, right? Personal productivity is easy. Your Microsoft, you come out with CoPilot for office. Everybody who has an Office, if you use CoPilot, this is what we charge you more for that on a per person basis. But this is not like that, right? This is business value. And you might have a fairly small number of users, and you might suddenly see hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of benefit every year.

現在有些產品很簡單，對嗎？個人生產力很容易。你的微軟，你推出了辦公室的CoPilot。每個擁有 Office 的人，如果您使用 CoPilot，這就是我們按人收取的更多費用。但事實並非如此，對吧？這就是商業價值。您的用戶數量可能相當少，但您可能會突然看到每年數十萬或數百萬美元的收益。

So how do you -- it isn't on a per seat basis, it isn't on data volume basis, it's truly on the value delivered to the end customer basis. And I think that that's where -- what do you tie that to becomes a really key question.

那麼你該怎麼做——它不是以每個席位為基礎，也不是以數據量為基礎，而是真正以交付給最終客戶的價值為基礎。我認為這就是 - 你將其與什麼聯繫起來成為一個真正關鍵的問題。

So great question. I wish I had a specific concrete answer for you. I don't other than the fact that we are experimenting as we speak. We are working with these customers and others to basically figure out what is the best way to price these things so that they get the value and they recognize that they pay us for the return we're generating for them.

很好的問題。我希望我能給你一個具體的答案。我只關心我們正在做實驗這一事實。我們正在與這些客戶和其他人合作，基本上找出對這些東西進行定價的最佳方式，以便他們獲得價值，並認識到他們為我們為他們創造的回報而向我們付費。

I appreciate the answer. And I can squeeze in one more, actually. Now that the MarkLogic acquisition has closed -- or that integration is complete, sorry, is there anything to call out that you learned from that integration? I know you guys improve on your process every time. And maybe is there an opportunity, help me understand, can AI -- the advances in AI help you increase the speed of the integration process?

我很欣賞你的回答。事實上，我還可以再擠一個。現在對 MarkLogic 的收購已經結束，或者說整合已經完成，抱歉，您從這次整合中學到了什麼？我知道你們每次都會改進你們的流程。也許有機會幫助我理解人工智慧——人工智慧的進步可以幫助你提高整合過程的速度嗎？

So I think I'll give you the second part first. I think the AI helping with speed of integration, I think that's a little premature. As you know, with a lot of these AI capabilities, you need a lot of data before they do something right and meaningful. I don't know anybody who can say I've got a database of 1,000 acquisitions done right in the enterprise software industry that I can leverage for helping with my AI.

所以我想我會先給你第二部分。我認為人工智慧有助於提高整合速度，但我認為這還為時過早。如您所知，有了許多人工智慧功能，您需要大量資料才能做出正確且有意義的事情。我不知道有誰可以說我擁有一個包含企業軟體產業中 1,000 筆收購的資料庫，我可以利用它來幫助我的人工智慧。

I think it can act -- I think it can help on some superficial incidental work like doing some analysis of, for example, contracts or something like that or customer contracts that the business might have and those kind of things, and we're looking at that. But overall, I don't know whether it can actually dramatically help. So I just -- at least right now, we are not sure it can.

我認為它可以發揮作用——我認為它可以幫助完成一些表面的附帶工作，例如對合約或類似的東西或企業可能擁有的客戶合約等進行一些分析，我們正在尋找在那裡。但總的來說，我不知道它是否真的能起到很大的幫助。所以我只是——至少現在，我們不確定它可以。

On the what did we learn from MarkLogic, I think one of the things that we were not as prepared for, to be honest, when we did the MarkLogic acquisition, is we didn't fully realize the level of complexity around the government. The federal government business that MarkLogic had that was with three-letter agencies, which was extremely classified, which meant that we have to create processes inside Progress to keep that information very, very contained and sort of keep it from those folks in the company who are not cleared.

關於我們從 MarkLogic 學到了什麼，我認為說實話，當我們收購 MarkLogic 時，我們沒有做好準備的一件事是我們沒有完全意識到政府的複雜程度。 MarkLogic 擁有的聯邦政府業務是與三字母機構合作，這是高度機密的，這意味著我們必須在Progress 內部創建流程，以非常非常嚴格地控制這些信息，並防止公司中的那些人接觸到這些信息。

And this is really a non-trivial thing and it's a really critical thing for those federal agencies who require security clearances. So most of the folks at Progress don't even know the names of those customers. We use code names for those customers because even names of those customers are confidential and secure.

這確實是一件不平凡的事情，對於那些需要安全許可的聯邦機構來說，這確實是一件至關重要的事情。因此，Progress 的大多數人甚至不知道這些客戶的名字。我們對這些客戶使用代號，因為即使是這些客戶的姓名也是保密且安全的。

So, Lucky, I think that was a wrinkle that we did not expect. We've learned how to work around that and figure out how to do the right things there. And we've created a very strong governance model around it to make sure that we keep the secure information secure yet conduct our business in a way that we can do our governance and our policies and our processes. So it took us a little bit longer in the first part of that acquisition, and that's what we learned out. We always learn something new with every single one. So thank you for asking.

所以，Lucky，我認為這是我們沒有預料到的問題。我們已經學會瞭如何解決這個問題並找出如何做正確的事情。我們圍繞著它創建了一個非常強大的治理模型，以確保我們確保安全資訊的安全，同時以我們可以進行治理、政策和流程的方式開展業務。因此，我們在收購的第一部分花了更長的時間，這就是我們學到的東西。我們總是從每個人身上學到新的東西。謝謝你的提問。

Yeah, it's great to hear. And thanks very much for taking my questions.

是的，很高興聽到。非常感謝您回答我的問題。

Brent Thill, Jefferies.

布倫特·希爾，杰弗里斯。

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. It's Antonio Venturim on for Brent. I wanted to ask, given your diverse portfolio of companies and end markets that sort of fall in your preview, can you maybe give your puts and takes on what you're seeing across sub-segments of your portfolio? Are you seeing differences in behaviors maybe across seat-based versus consumption end markets or changes in trends in your relational versus NoSQL databases or on-prem versus cloud customers? Anything that sort of stuck out to you in the quarter that may have surprised you relative to your expectations.

大家好。感謝您提出我的問題。安東尼奧·文圖里姆 (Antonio Venturim) 替補布倫特 (Brent)。我想問的是，考慮到您的公司和終端市場的多樣化投資組合在您的預覽中有所下降，您能否根據您在投資組合的子細分市場中看到的情況給出您的賣權和承付金額？您是否發現基於席位的市場與消費終端市場之間的行為差異，或者關聯式資料庫與 NoSQL 資料庫或本地客戶與雲端客戶的趨勢變化？本季發生的任何讓你印象深刻的事情可能會讓你相對於你的預期感到驚訝。

Hey, Antonio. It's interesting, right? So we don't really have consumption-based pricing in our products, to be honest. You could potentially say, okay, you know what, our OEM relationships are consumption-based, but they are not really. They're not consumption-based in the two sense of the word.

嘿，安東尼奧。很有趣，對吧？所以說實話，我們的產品並沒有真正基於消費的定價。您可能會說，好吧，您知道嗎，我們的 OEM 關係是基於消費的，但事實並非如此。從兩個意義上來說，它們並不是基於消費的。

The OEM, they find new customers or they expand their customer base and they get more licenses from us, but that's not consumption-based the way the market talks about consumption-based where they say, more users using it or more data being put through it or those kind of -- or more transactions going through it.

OEM，他們尋找新客戶或擴大客戶群，並從我們那裡獲得更多許可證，但這不是基於消費的方式，而是市場談論基於消費的方式，他們說，更多的用戶使用它或更多的數據通過它或那些類型的——或者更多的交易通過它。

So really, for us, it is a more traditional enterprise software business. We are continuing to see strength in our cloud as well as on-prem offerings. So nothing sort of unusual there for us. But again, we are not selling cloud apps that basically somebody has to go, hey, I need a new project to put in a new HR system or a new financial system or a new this or a new that, right?

所以實際上，對我們來說，這是一個更傳統的企業軟體業務。我們繼續看到我們的雲端和本地產品的優勢。所以對我們來說沒有什麼不尋常的。但再說一遍，我們不是在銷售基本上需要有人去的雲端應用程序，嘿，我需要一個新專案來放入新的人力資源系統或新的財務系統或新的這個或新的那個，對嗎？

What they are looking to say is, you know what, how do I better manage what I have? How do I secure it more? How do I deploy these things well? How do I expand my applications? How do I add capabilities to my applications? How do I leverage my data? How do I integrate that data into my business processes? How do I make my business processes more intelligent. So how do I have better user experiences for my customers?

他們想說的是，你知道嗎，我如何更好地管理我所擁有的？我怎樣才能更安全？怎樣才能很好的部署這些東西呢？如何擴展我的應用程式？如何為我的應用程式添加功能？我如何利用我的數據？如何將該數據整合到我的業務流程中？如何讓我的業務流程更加智慧。那麼如何為我的客戶提供更好的使用者體驗呢？

I mean all kinds of things. So all those things are around the infrastructure and the mission-critical applications that they have that run on that infrastructure. And so therefore, what many of those guys out there are seeing that are dependent on new projects, is I think, a very different market segment overall than what Progress plays in, and which is one of the reasons why Progress has been a very resilient company throughout.

我的意思是各種各樣的事情。因此，所有這些事情都圍繞著基礎設施和在該基礎設施上運行的關鍵任務應用程式。因此，我認為，許多依賴新項目的人所看到的，總體上是一個與 Progress 所涉足的市場截然不同的細分市場，這也是 Progress 一直非常有彈性的原因之一。

I know that a lot of people, including myself, weren't here when the Great Recession took place. But even during the Great Recession, if you look at historic results of Progress, they were extremely good compared to what happened to the rest of the industry and the rest of the tech market from a business perspective, from a revenue and those kind of perspective.

我知道大衰退發生時很多人，包括我自己，都不在場。但即使在大衰退期間，如果你看 Progress 的歷史業績，從商業角度、收入等角度來看，與行業其他部分和科技市場其他部分相比，它們的表現也非常好。

And so the reason is that it is a very resilient business and our customers are using our software, which is essential software. And it is about sort of continuing to work with them and winning some new, right? If you look at our business, obviously, we win some new because we see ARR growth, right? And it's rather small, but for us, it is important. And so we continue to win some new customers and we win them across the board.

原因是這是一個非常有彈性的業務，我們的客戶正在使用我們的軟體，這是必不可少的軟體。這是關於繼續與他們合作並贏得一些新的，對嗎？如果你看看我們的業務，顯然，我們贏得了一些新的，因為我們看到了 ARR 的成長，對嗎？雖然它很小，但對我們來說很重要。因此，我們繼續贏得一些新客戶，並且全面贏得他們。

So no specific segment specific or market specific or product specific. I mean, again, you heard Anthony's commentary on how our products performed, many of which did well this quarter. So it's always quite often a different set of products every quarter. But overall, very solid business and continue to see the same type of demand going forward.

因此，沒有特定的細分市場、特定的市場或特定的產品。我的意思是，您再次聽到了安東尼對我們產品表現的評論，其中許多產品在本季度表現良好。因此，每季通常都會推出一組不同的產品。但總體而言，業務非常穩健，並且未來將繼續看到相同類型的需求。

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

驚人的。感謝你們。

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Yogesh Gupta for any closing remarks.

謝謝。目前我在隊列中沒有顯示任何其他問題。現在我想將電話轉回給 Yogesh Gupta 先生，讓他發表結束語。

Thank you, Shuri, and thank you, everyone for joining us. Really appreciate it, and we look forward to talking to all of you again soon. Have a good night.

謝謝你，Shuri，也謝謝大家加入我們。非常感謝，我們期待很快再次與大家交談。祝你晚安。

Thank you. This concludes today's program. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.

謝謝。今天的節目到此結束。感謝大家的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。