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Operator
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. Welcome to the WidePoint Corporation second quarter earnings conference call.
(Operator Instructions)
Following the presentation the conference will be open for questions. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Fore, with Hayden IR. Please go ahead, sir.
- IR
Thank you operator. Good afternoon to all participants in WidePoint's second-quarter 2011 financial results conference call. With me today are WidePoint's Chairman and CEO, Steve Komar, and Chief Financial Officer, Jim McCubbin. Steve will provide an overview of the second-quarter issue results, and Jim will provide additional financial details. Then we will open the call to questions from investors and participants.
Again, I remind you that this conference call contains forward looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as described from time-to-time in the registration statements and reports and other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, which address the Company's expectations for its future with respect to financial performance or operating strategy, can be identified as a forward looking statement.
These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the Company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those described in the forward looking statements. Those forward looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that are subject to change, based upon various factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. We caution investors that these forward looking statements speak only as to the date hereof. The Company hereby expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly, any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in the Company's expectations or any change of events, conditions or circumstances in which our statements were based.
I would now like to turn the call over to WidePoint's Chairman and CEO Steve Komar for opening remarks.
- Chairman and CEO
Thank you David. And good day to everyone who has joined us this afternoon. As always, we appreciate your continuing interest in WidePoint.
We are pleased to report that the Company return to profitability in the second quarter of 2011, and as we had anticipated, showed sequential improvement in our Wireless Mobility Management and CyberSecurity Solution segments. Related revenue growth had a positive impact on gross margins, operating income and net income for the quarter. More specifically, Wireless Mobility Management revenue increased sequentially in the first quarter, as did the CyberSecurity segment. The increase in both Wireless Mobility Management and CyberSecurity, was offset by decreases in our IT Consulting Services and Product segment, related indirectly to the continuing delays in finalizing the formal federal budget. However the decline in lower margin Consulting revenue actually helped us expand our gross margins versus the prior quarter. These improved revenues and expanded gross margins enabled us to return to profitability with income from operations of approximately $384,000, which is an $889,000 swing to the positive, from an operating loss of approximately $505,000 in the first quarter.
In just a moment, Jim will provide further financial details, including year-over-year comparables. Not surprisingly, but certainly of great frustration to us, our government customers have continued to delay procuring our products and services as the federal budget controversy and debt ceiling debate continued through the second quarter. Although WidePoint was not at any measurable risk of our federal government clients having to suspend payments to the Company, we did continue to experience a slowdown in the pace of contract awards and potential new orders. No doubt related to the ongoing budget confusion and imposition of additional -- continuing resolutions for spending.
As we have said in the past, given our current concentration in the government sector, the timing of product delivery and our product mix within our target market, can meaningfully impact our results from quarter-to-quarter. This situation had a negative impact on revenues in our second quarter relative to prior-year comparables, but fortunately not on our profitability. During the quarter Management reviews also resulted in the deferral or elimination of discretionary expenses wherever practical to do so without causing damage to the underlying business. The financial effect of those actions will favorably impact the second half results. We remain committed to growing both revenue and earnings during coming quarters, notwithstanding some of the short-term risks associated with government budgeting impasses and spending cuts.
The ground work we laid in 2010 continues to provide us with a platform to leverage opportunity in all segments of our business. We fully expect CyberSecurity initiatives to generate substantial new revenue growth in the future, as various federal agencies seek greater levels of identity assurance and management, and better protection of the federal information technology infrastructure. We are ready seeing the impact of these initiatives, as government contractors and vendors are increasing their compliance efforts to meet federal identity management standards. An example of this during the second quarter was the continuing acceleration and the issuance of ECA and AC certificates, which almost doubled versus the fourth quarter 2010.
In addition, the multi-million dollar contract we were awarded by the US Army Corps of Engineers late in the first quarter of 2011, and substantially implemented during the second quarter, demonstrates recognition of the value that our telecommunications management solution provides to budget-strapped governmental agencies in the efficient management and control of their wireless devices.
With that I'd like to turn the call over to Jim McCubbin, WidePoint's CFO, for a more in-depth discussion of our financial results. I will then follow up with a recap of our second quarter and Management's outlook, before opening up the call to your questions. Jim, the floor is yours.
- CFO
Hello everyone, and thank you Steve. As you are all aware, our second quarter continued to be frustrating for WidePoint, as the congressional debates on the federal debt ceiling continued, just after the 2011 fiscal budget resolutions had just been resolved, which caused even further delays and confusion for everyone. An environmental set of conditions which set us back and causes delays, that negatively impacted our fiscal 2011 goals. Thankfully, they've just been delays.
Given this frustrating dynamic that was thrown at us, we did change our [tacks] in the beginning of the second quarter and prepared for continuing delays during this quarter. We changed our focus and trimmed some of our discretionary costs and investments we were currently making, and instead focused on growth areas that we believed were not going to be as affected from the congressional stalemate out that was taking place.
Taken together, these actions produced the bottom-line result that allowed us to turn around our financial performance in the first quarter of 2011 from a negative financial result to a positive result in the second quarter of 2011. A result that we realized with reduced levels of revenues and higher margins. These proactive changes, we believe have and will allow us, to remain flexible as the environmental conditions we are witnessing today play themselves out as we enter our second half. A second half which tends to outperform our first half, and 1 in which we believe, will be the case again this year.
Examining our revenue streams a little deeper within our various businesses, we witnessed revenue growth for the 3-month period ending June 30, 2011 of approximately $10 million as of compared to approximately $12.5 million for the 3-month period ended June 30, 2010. The reduced revenues for the quarter, both sequentially and comparatively, were materially affected by delays experienced in our Consulting Services segment, which we realized a number of potential orders being pushed off as a result of the confusion surrounding the debt ceiling debate issues and the late resolutions of the budget matters for fiscal year 2011.
Specifically, looking at our IT Consulting Services product segment, we recognize revenues of approximately $1.5 million for the 3-month period ending June 30, 2011, versus $3.1 million for the 3-month period ended June 30, 2010. Our outlook for this segment for the remainder of the year looks promising, as we approached the federal government's year-end on September 30, which should provide us with the potential for sweep-up monies that have not been obligated, and catching-up some of the outstanding bids we currently have outstanding.
Looking at our Wireless Mobility Management segment, we witnessed revenue increased 9.8% to $6.2 million of the second quarter of 2011, from $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2011, but decreased 10.6% year-over-year compared to $6.9 million in the second quarter of last year, as a result of lower resales of billable calling minutes that were not fully offset by increases in higher margin wireless management recurring service fees.
Our outlook for the second half of 2011, also looks brighter for this segment, as we are witnessing a growing pipeline of opportunities, some new recent awards within the state and local municipality marketplace, and a number of renewals that have recently been extended. Looking at our CyberSecurity segment, revenue increased 82.7% to $2.3 million in the second quarter of 2011 from $1.3 million in the first quarter this year, but decreased 7.7% year-over-year compared to $2.5 million in the second quarter of last year, also a result of delays that occurred due to federal government budget -- funding concerns, policy issues, and debt ceiling debates.
Our outlook for the second half of 2011 for this segment also shows improvement, as the federal government implements new security guidelines and phases out the use of user names and passwords from certain federal government systems. All events that have expanded opportunities within a number of federal agencies, as well as in communities of interest under federal regulations, including public safety, healthcare, and environmental regulated communities, as Steve will expand upon his closing remarks. In examining our gross margins, we also witnessed an increase of 55% to 27.1% in the second quarter of this year as compared to 17.5% in the first quarter of 2011, and an increase of 15% year-over-year compared to 23.5% in the second quarter of last year, due to more favorable revenue mix of higher margin services.
Improvements in our Wireless and Cyber segment's margins, as well as the mix of services we provide, have bolstered a belief that we should continue to experience both margin growth, attributable to this mix and improvement of this mix, as well as economies of scale. All positive indicators looking out toward 2012. Overall, our outlook remains positive for the second half of the year, but we caution you that it could still be erratic depending on how the mix of revenues are accounted for between the third and fourth quarters.
Given the opportunity for continued CyberSecurity and wireless growth in revenues, we believe we have the opportunity to witness improved margins in the second half. Given all of these positive efforts, we were pleased to see that we returned to profitability in the second quarter, with income from operations of approximately $384,000 for the second quarter of 2011, as compared to income from operations of approximately $511,000 in last year's comparable period. And net income that was approximately $214,000, for the second quarter of 2011, as compared to net income of approximately $413,000 in last year's comparative period. We were especially pleased with this result, given the lower level of comparative revenues.
As we look at reestablishing growing revenue streams in the second half and into 2012, and so long as those revenues continue to come from our high margin growth areas, we believe that the outlook remains positive for the second half for continued progress. While our quarter-to-quarter results could still be lumpy, the opportunities clearly are developing to provide us with a rebound, as we enter into what looks to be a very promising 2012.
With that, I'd like to turn it back to you Steve.
- Chairman and CEO
Thank you Jim. Excellent summary. I would like to take a few additional minutes and just highlight a number of initiatives that we think speak to the future, as well as some successes that we experienced, during the second quarter just ended.
Earlier, I referred to our new contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers. This new multi-year relationship, forged under the terms of the General Service Administration's FSSI, or Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative contract, as our iSYS subsidiary, implementing our Wireless Management Solution, across a geographically dispersed organization with the user base of 28,000 devices.
By the end of the second quarter that entire population had been converted to our services base. And additional optional services and related revenues will be rolled out during the third quarter of this year. Our participation in the Transportation Workers Identity Card Program has resulted in approximately 2,000,000 searched, being issued across our nation's ports. One of the most successful credentialing programs under government auspices More interesting, is the fact that as this contract moves toward a successor contract, our ORC subsidiary has been designated as a required component, that is, all successful bidders must be able to deliver the ORC solution as part of their services proposals.
As mentioned earlier, recent federal mandates to extend the requirements for transactional security beyond internal government, are perspectively expanding our market opportunity and will provide growth for us, even in situations where direct government spending may be held up. Recently the Department of Defense has begun restricting access to non-military personnel, to only users possessing cryptographic log-on. The National Security Agency's ARCnet Platform and the Defense Security's JPAS System, have adopted lockdown dates within the next several months -- becoming effective within the next several months. So now, all now, will require approved digital certificates for access.
WidePoint has positioned itself with a number of industry-leading partners to expand its offerings to vendors, government contractors, and others, who are required to comply with these federal rules, and which affect the population of between 3 million and 5 million users. These partners have often related to our primary governed customers, but they are not as directly impacted by government budgetary issues. Among the additional markets served by these customers, are healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, public safety, and state ID initiative. And we intend to expand our penetration into these markets, while maintaining a strong presence in the federal sector.
Although the state of the economy has delayed progress somewhat, we are currently engaged with organizations across all of these domains that represent an impressive multiple of millions of credentials yet to be delivered.
As we said last quarter, we believe our new business initiatives, in aggregate, will generate an incremental $200 million-plus revenue opportunity for WidePoint over the next five years. Further, we expect a substantial proportion of this to come to fruition within the next 2 years.
We continue to believe the expectations we set last year are achievable over the medium to long term, notwithstanding some of the short-term hurdles we have experienced, tied to government budgeting impasses and required workarounds. With that as a summation of current activities and outlook, I'd like to now open the call to your questions. Operator if you would help us out?
Operator
Thank you Sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.
(Operator Instructions)
Mike Malouf, with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.
- Analyst
Hi guys, nice to see you move into a profitable quarter, from last quarter. It is a tough environment out there, so well done. I did have a question with regards to looking out into the future. When I -- you see that, certainly on the PKI side, you've seen some good growth last year followed by a little bit of a pullback. When you take a look over the next, call it, 2 or 3 years, you talk about $200 million in potential, but we know we're doing around $10 million a year now. Where do you think that can go over the next, let's just call it, couple of years?
- Chairman and CEO
I think, Mike -- hi, by the way. Thanks for the nice words. It has been a little tough, but we think we are on a good path right now. Obviously we need to demonstrate that. As to the growth and throwing at $200 million number out there, we don't do that to make light of it. We have a number of models that talk to specific agency penetrations, and that talk to what we believe will be opportunities -- again, specific opportunities that come to pass, in the course of the next 6 to 12 months.
When we apply some financials to that model in terms of what we believe and understand to be the pro-user costs, license fees, and related revenues, and assuming a successful penetration, we can really see some revenue build in that marketplace. Now that was not -- that $200 million was across WidePoint. I want to point that out as well. We do believe that on the Wireless Mobility side, that we will see some very substantial growth in that area as well.
- CFO
Hi Mike. There is a number of programs that are coming online, out of Department of Homeland Security, that effect really -- not governmental funded directly initiatives -- but effect the communities that need to work within that environment. Where the numbers are derived from are driven by those communities, and those communities include everything from what they want to do with first responders, what they want to do with airport workers, what they want to do with surface and port workers, what they are clearly doing with [fact-based] access for contractor base.
All of these things over the last 3 to 4 months have had critical pushes out of the policy side, where in OMB-11-11, it clearly said, by the end of this November, all new software systems are going to have PKI requirements built into them, and within a year after that, all legacy systems are going to have that put into that as well. What they are doing, is they're pushing these communities to no longer use username and password, but to the utilizing some of the credential offerings that we provide to gain access for these sites.
A number of these DOD sites, in fact, are requiring access as of January 2012 for some, with the DOD, with NSA. All of this is also wrapped around the government's cloud-based push or initiative, to save money by closing or cutting down data centers. And to get cloud-based services to work effectively and for the government to realize savings, they have to have good identity management and information assurance, so that the metered services that they are being rendered to, and access coming into it can be achieved.
This is been a longtime policy that is now being put into place. For the first time this year, we are seeing it adhered to. That is one of the things that is driving our ECA or External Certificate Authority growth, in the DOD credentials, and we believe that next it will be driving our FiXs as well as our ACES and other credentialing programs.
- Analyst
Okay, great. That's very helpful. And then, with regards to the Wireless Mobility Side, that's great that we got the US government; the Army Corps of Engineers rolled out. When you take a look at that piece of business over the next couple of years, can you give us a sense of the potential on that as well?
- CFO
I mean we enrolled and set pretty much US Army Corps of Engineers up in the second quarter, and ramped them up to approximately 27,000 to 28,000 users very efficiently. That is just going to have a recurring measure to them, and we will also see some wraparound services being provided to them, as well as some other agencies starting in the third quarter.
So, the metric there is, as you know, is anywhere in that $40 to $60 revenue per user rate on just the managed service alone, not counting wraparounds. So what's more exciting for us though, is we also started penetrating state and local municipalities, and we've just started seeing some of our first initial awards coming out of some primary states and those municipalities that we are quite excited about -- the penetration that we are seeing and witnessing.
We also are seeing, for the first time, our pipeline grow from certain initiatives, now that a lot of the budget and debt ceiling issues have gotten behind us, within the federal side. So all-in-all, it's just one of those growth areas that we are just seeing become more evolutionary.
Remember also, we strategically tried to get away from the reselling of minutes as part of the programs, and that is also driving increasing margins within that space. So you may have a little less in revenue growth, but we believe that we're going to have much stronger margin growth in that area as these new revenue streams come online. So we're excited about it.
- Chairman and CEO
Mike, I would add just one thing, to sort of address your question about growth potential, without being too pointed. We are currently servicing right around 100,000 devices. We are aware of, and are participating in, RFP processes for 4 more government agencies. That would easily, comfortably, triple, if not more, that current user base.
The potential is out there, the purse strings are starting to loosen, we are seeing some activity in the RFP, [join] this very cautiously, but we are seeing a pickup of activities in RFP process. We are clearly differentiated in the quality service provider, to the government sector, in regards to wireless mobility, and we think we have a really good shot at coming up with a multiple at today's environment.
- Analyst
Great, thanks for the help.
Operator
Mark Jordan, with Noble Financial Capital Markets.
- Analyst
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Question relative to the potential impact of CR as we move into fiscal '12. Question is, how much of how much of a pipeline do you think, of new business will you get written in the wireless area between now and the end of the government's current fiscal year? Question 1. And question 2, if we do have a CR, will that limit your ability to establish new relationships with potentially, some of these new agencies that you are talking to? Or would you be able to roll -- sign them up prior to the approval of budgets for fiscal '12?
- CFO
Mark this is Jim. It has been an interesting 2011 that's for sure. We got knocked down hard in the first quarter. We've gotten back up, and we went back to fighting the good fight. But, I will tell you there's about 4 agencies that are trying to get our fees out, and trying to really address them with sweep-up in year-end -- efforts. So I can't really tell you. If we get it out timely, that would be great.
As it goes to the continuing resolution, I am fully expecting another continuing resolution in 2012, that may have some impact on how things may start or roll out. But most of these agencies right now are desperate for cost savings, and there is zero cost for implementing our programs. They just have to have the ability, and we're working with them on how they can write contract vehicles, to live within those continuing resolution environments.
So quarter-to-quarter could be a little tricky, year-over-year, I think, it's not going to stop them. They are just going to find other ways around it, because of the net negative cost, and their desires to really cut costs right now. And as you know, we have been showing the agencies how we can save anywhere between 40% to 60% off their annual spend.
- Analyst
Okay. Question relative, I guess, earlier in the year EMC was kind of embarrassed with some security problems relative to some of their security systems. Has that breach impacted your ability, or piece of your business, in the credentialing area?
- CFO
Well, actually, what you are speaking of, for everybody to know of, is that there were some breaches associated with some RSA tokens, which is technology that actually doesn't hurt us. In fact in some ways, because of these breaches, it is helping us with what we do.
We have a more sustainable, more robust solution set. And given that, if anything, it is having some people look a little bit harder, and it's also starting, we believe, to help speed up some of the adoptions and some of the credentialing, of some of these systems DOD-wide initially, NSA-wide, to quickly move and get away from either rolling tumbling credentials or tokens, and/or also move us into an environment from more of a robust solution.
At the same time, it's also made a number of our clients, I do want to point out to everybody, to not want to put out press releases or address this environment in any way. We have had some contract wins, we have had some -- both in our Cyber Security segment, as you can witness in the second quarter.
We've also had a commercial user, that works with the federal government, adopt our solution, but we are being asked not to really publicize that to a great extent because of the sensitivities surrounding some of the breaches and some of the environmental concerns that have issued. They do not want us raising flags in front of them and trying to address and tell the hordes to come and try to attack them. But, Mark, if anything, it looks like this is probably going to help us, medium-term, because it really is an addressable solution that solves some of the problems.
- Analyst
Thank you very much.
Operator
Sam Donaldson, Private Investor.
- Private Investor
Well, gentlemen, I think you've done a very, very good job handling a very, very bad problem, and I thank you for that. I have just a couple of things. First, just judging from what the 2 of you have said, between the lines, about this third quarter that we are now in, and 2 weeks away from the [effortless] default that some -- fortunately didn't succeed in -- are you saying that you expect that the sweep-up money and that the money will begin to flow again? Has it started already? Or is that yet to come?
- Chairman and CEO
I think Sam, and by the way, thank you for the kind words, it's been a rather unpleasant period for us as well, and we're working hard to make it better. I think, as it relates to what we are seeing out there today, in all honesty and candor, I would say we are seeing in activity level -- we are seeing activity levels pick up, and that comes across in terms of increased government documentation and contact throughout the contracting process.
We are engaged in a series of discussions defining RFPs or are in the process of filing responses to the RFPs, and when you compare that to the fact that for the prior 5 or 6 months, there was little or no activity or contact. Everybody basically had their heads down in the trenches, and nobody was going to take any position or risk. We are seeing now lots of activity, lots of requests for information in RFPs from us, and we know that this is a very healthy sign going forward.
There has also been rumblings about unobligated funds being available between now and September 30, but that could just as easily be hearsay. We believe there is some truth to that as well, so I think we are looking for some short-term opportunity in the third quarter that we're looking to hopefully, but we're feeling quite strong about the second half of the year in terms of total activity in contracts to be awarded and orders to be awarded.
- Private Investor
Okay, but in the third quarter, this activity leads you to believe that -- very hopeful -- that there will be money coming in by the end of the fiscal year? Actual proceeds? But so far that is still in the activity, let's look at the schedule, and let's get the documents out, in all of that area right?
- CFO
Sam, yes we are -- Sam, we are seeing that. But remember also, we have been moving some of the revenue streams, and where we're going to see some of the revenue streams and the growth come from, is actually non-budgeted federal money. It's really going to be coming from areas outside of that domain. The feds are really pushing the implementation of this hard right now, and the contractor base and other communities are going to have to bear this cost, not the federal infrastructure. So, what's exciting about that, is on the cyber side, that's where the growth is coming from. So we don't have as much at risk from government to clients on some of the funding.
Also, as it goes to money being obligated, just to be straight out, we are seeing an increase in pick-up of it being obligated in the third quarter and that's sweep-up money. Now, it has to all occur, we have to get it done, and one of the reasons we are not addressing the third quarter and fourth quarter, but the second half is we believe the second half will be stronger. The revenue recognition on how it occurs in the third or fourth, we're not quite sure how it is going to play out exactly right now because of what we are seeing. But we do believe the second half, right now, with everything that we are seeing is going to be stronger than the first half and is going to kind of resurrect what we were doing prior to the bump in the first quarter and some of the follow through in the second quarter. The first half just set us behind. It hurt us for 2011 goals, but nothing has changed the outlook that we are looking at for the opportunities in 2012, like we have said. So, that's good; I mean it really is good. We've made it through, fairly unharmed, from this mess, which we can call the first half.
- Private Investor
Well, fair enough. I understand that. Let's project just a little bit. No one knows what's going to happen with this Committee of 12. They either come up with some cuts, or if they don't, there will be across-the-board cuts, but none of that really kicks in until about 2014. So down the road we can't see. But am I correct, that we continue to believe that our business is in certain areas of the Federal Government, that may be among the last to feel an axe, because of the sensitive nature and requirements for Cyber Security that exist there?
- Chairman and CEO
Easy answer to that one, Sam. Yes. That is what we believe.
- Private Investor
So, we are in the sweet spot. Again, I thank you very much. Bye.
Operator
[Doug Newman, UBS]
- Analyst
Gentlemen, nice to see your profitable quarter. I've got a couple of questions. The agencies that you talked about,] that could add maybe 3 times the number of users, you say you have 100,000 devices at $40 to $60 per user, and I am guessing that is a yearly cost? In which case you are talking about $5 million revenue there. And then the 300 more than you're looking at, would add another $15 million in revenue, I'm guessing? If you can just sort of confirm that those numbers are in the right order of magnitude? And then if you could talk about the wraparound revenues? How much extra that might be?
- CFO
Well I don't -- we can confirm -- our monthly and annual for the basic managed service, tends to be approximately $60. There is some variation depending on the services that we are providing, actually. So that gives you your confirmation on that point --
- Analyst
$60 a year?
- CFO
Yes. Just figure $5 a month if you want to thumbnail it.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CFO
Beyond that, the wraparound services, we can't really comment on right now, because some of them are asking things to do outside -- some things out of the domain, but it could be anywhere from dealing with some maintenance and doing some consulting work for systems work with them. Trying to make things a little bit better in how they are viewing the information. And/or providing some other services and products for them that they need to expand what they are doing within their agencies. So, not in a position to comment on it right now.
- Analyst
Is that a significant percentage, or is it 5%, or in the neighborhood of 10% to 30% more, or more?
- CFO
Doug, I think it's just too preliminary. We will know a little bit more in about a month, when we get the actual details and negotiate it all out, and wrap it up. But we are just -- I can't give you anything hard enough for you right now, without it potentially changing.
- Analyst
In a normal environment, the potential agencies that you mentioned, what would be the sales cycle?
- CFO
We have witnessed on average, about a 1-year sales cycle, but you have to understand that a lot of these agencies we have been -- these are sales cycles that we started last year. And they just got delayed and held up. Actually we were expecting awards a lot earlier and these things to come out, but their hands were tied in the first half. So --
- Analyst
So, intellectually, they've decided that this is a good service? So it's more a question of pulling the trigger and having the budget authorization to do that?
- CFO
Yes. That's correct.
- Analyst
Are these folks able to -- since it doesn't -- you are saying that it doesn't actually cost them money, because of the savings that you provide. Are they able to build that into their budget request, or are their hands just tied?
- CFO
Well, a lot of times when their hands get tied, just simply speaking, they are not allowed to obligate or enter into a contract vehicle. And that's what's holding them up --
- Analyst
So, it's not a question of money? It's a question of not even being able to sign a contract?
- CFO
You're talking about a bureaucracy and paperwork, where they have to go through a set of processes to do it. And it frustrates them as a much is it frustrates us, because it's known money. And sometimes they get their hands tied on how they can go about it, because it may have to -- under a continuing resolution, you can continue your spend at prior period, or prior year's levels. But you can't enter into new contract vehicles so they have to find new ways, or creative ways, to work around that to realize those savings. Sometimes it's harder than others, to get this all put into place. That's all.
- Chairman and CEO
I would just add to that, that I think Jim is appropriate to state that the sales cycle can be a year long. But that is not necessarily always the case. I think in the case of the Army Corps of Engineers, we are dealing with 3 to 4 months from beginning to actual installation. And what we are seeing now, and anticipating, is that there is going to be much more focus in these agencies on the benefits of cost saving. They are all looking for cost reductions, much more so than in the past, and we're hoping that's going to affect both the bureaucracy and the sales cycle. And we have at least 1 substantial indication that that can be the case --
- CFO
Now also please be aware that in the case of the Unites States Army Corps of Engineers, we started the work in the second quarter, and we had 27,000 to 28,000 units fully up and in the system by the end of that second quarter.
- Analyst
That actually relates to the question I was about to ask you. If they all sign tomorrow, how quickly could you roll them out?
- CFO
We have the bandwidth to, within 1 to 2 months, given their -- what they have and what they can provide us -- to have them up.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CFO
A lot of our systems are automated, and it's easy for us to populate it. So some of the proprietary IP that we have, has worked very well now for all of the agencies. It's really tailor-made to quickly ramp up, so there's not a whole lot of start up cost for us to do that.
- Chairman and CEO
Let's just say that if they all come in, it's going to be a hell of a challenge. But it's a challenge that we will welcome, and I think we can do a pretty efficient job of getting them up pretty quickly
- Analyst
Okay. So I mean if -- they all -- if you were so lucky as to have them all sign tomorrow, you could get that business to a revenue run rate, assuming that you've got another 300,000 devices out, so that's 400,000, so you could get that business to a revenue run rate of somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million to $20 million a year by January? Just doing that math.
- Chairman and CEO
If you'll accept the baseline assumption, that all of them sign up tomorrow, that's pretty close to an accurate statement. However, I think we need to take a hard look at whether that is really going to happen or not. I hate to raise an expectation of that kind of size, based on that assumption.
- Analyst
That's fine. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, and at this time we are showing no further questions in the queue. I would like to pass the call back now to Management.
- Chairman and CEO
Great. Thank you operator. Well, just to finish up, I think I would just like to say that we have established WidePoint as a credible, trustworthy partner to government and commercial markets, as well as to our many partners with whom we deliver our technology services and products. Despite the challenges that have recently impacted our revenues, we have stabilized our business and returned to profitability. We expect the second half of 2011 to show improvements compared to the first half, as we move past the controversial debt ceiling discussions, and federal budgets are hopefully finalized.
In summary, we remain extremely optimistic, about our opportunities in 2012 and beyond. I'd like to thank you all for your time and interest in WidePoint. We appreciate your continued commitment to us, and we will look forward to talking with you again on our next conference call. Thank you, and have a great evening.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen this concludes the WidePoint Corporation second quarter earnings conference call. Thank you for your participation you may now disconnect.