Salesforce的口才 技術行業不可爭議的領導者

If there is one area in which Salesforce is the technology industry’s undisputed leader, it is superlatives. Quarterly results on Wednesday were described within six sentences as “spectacular”, “unprecedented”, “tremendous” and “outstanding”.

如果説Salesforce在某一個領域是技術行業不可爭議的領導者，那一定是使用形容詞的最高級。該公司在週三發佈的季度業績報告中，在六句話裏扎堆出現“壯觀”、“史無前例”、“驚人”和“優秀”。

You might expect a side dish of profits with that main course of braggadocio, especially since another boast was “top and bottom line excellence”. You would be disappointed. Salesforce made a net loss of $25m on revenues of $1.8bn in the fourth quarter. Yet investors were content to embrace the hype: shares in the enterprise software company rose 9 per cent in after-hours trading.

在享用了這種誇誇其談的主菜之後，你可能會期待一碟利潤小菜，尤其是因為該公司的另一個吹噓是“頂線和底線卓越”。你會失望。Salesforce第四季度營收18億美元，淨虧損2500萬美元。然而投資者很滿意上述炒作：這家企業軟件公司的股價在盤後上漲了9%。

Relief is understandable. In the first five weeks of the year, Salesforce’s stock fell more than 30 per cent amid a sudden crisis of confidence in the prospects of “software as a service” — or SaaS — companies. The sell-off was premature. Some companies, such as Tableau Software, have indeed earned a lower multiple with weaker guidance. But any widespread collapse in IT budgets is not evident.

投資者的寬慰可以理解。今年頭5個星期，Salesforce的股價因市場對軟件服務(Saas)企業的前景突現信任危機而下跌逾30%。這波拋售有點偏早。一些企業，例如Tableau軟件公司，確實以更弱的利潤指引換來了更低的估值倍數，但還沒有證據證明會有大範圍的IT預算大潰散。

As founder and chief braggart Marc Benioff is at pains to stress, not many companies of Salesforce’s size are growing at more than 20 per cent a year. Investors will still pay up for growth — Salesforce’s enterprise value is back up at 6 times forward sales — they are just demanding more evidence that it is not going to fall off a cliff.

作為創始人和首席“吹牛師”的馬克·貝尼奧夫(Marc Benioff)竭力強調的是，沒有很多Salesforce這般規模的公司還能每年增長20%以上。投資者還是會為增長付出高價——Salesforce的企業價值已回升至預期銷售的6倍——他們只是希望看到更多證據表明它不會掉下懸崖。

One metric that provides some comfort is that 72 per cent of Salesforce’s customers only tap it for one product line: there should be more opportunity to cross-sell its sales, service and marketing clouds. The company now crows about signing “nine-figure” deals, apparently the fruit of chatting up chief executives at Davos. It also bumped up its revenue estimate to $8.1bn in 2017 from $6.7bn reported on Wednesday for the 2016 fiscal year. The bottom line has not showed a profit in five years, but net cash from operations was $460m in the quarter and cash flow margins are strengthening. The top end of Salesforce’s 2017 profit guidance is a mighty $0 a share. If those targets are beaten you have to fear for the strain on Mr Benioff’s thesaurus.

有一個能帶來些許安慰的指標是，有72%的Salesforce客户僅使用了它一條產品線：應該有更多機會來交叉銷售其銷售、服務和營銷雲。該公司目前宣稱正簽署價值“9位數”的訂單，顯然是跟出席達沃斯的首席執行官們攀談的結果。這也推動其2017財年的營收預期增加至81億美元，週三發佈的2016財年營收預期為67億美元。底線已有五年沒有顯示盈利，但運營中的淨現金流在第四季度達到4.6億美元，而且現金流利潤率也在加強。Salesforce在2017年的利潤指引區間上端是每股0美元。如果這些目標能被打破，你得對貝尼奧夫的詞彙表所受的壓力感到擔憂。