one kind of company that honestly doesn't know
until the last minute of the last day of the quarter
whether they made their numbers is an enterprise
software corporation. That's because they can book a
multi-hundred thousand dollar sale just by shipping a
CD full of software code to a customer, or
even transferring an electronic file over the
Internet.
In contrast, hardware companies often preannounce
results a couple of weeks before the quarter ends,
because there's no time left to make up for orders
that get delayed or pushed out at the last minute.
But when a software company misses their quarterly
estimates, we usually don't find out until the few
days right after the end of the quarter. That's what
happened after the close on April 1 with PeopleSoft,
and again this morning with Check Point.
until the last minute of the last day of the quarter
whether they made their numbers is an enterprise
software corporation. That's because they can book a
multi-hundred thousand dollar sale just by shipping a
CD full of software code to a customer, or
even transferring an electronic file over the
Internet.
In contrast, hardware companies often preannounce
results a couple of weeks before the quarter ends,
because there's no time left to make up for orders
that get delayed or pushed out at the last minute.
But when a software company misses their quarterly
estimates, we usually don't find out until the few
days right after the end of the quarter. That's what
happened after the close on April 1 with PeopleSoft,
and again this morning with Check Point.