I welcome comments.

IMO

I’ve said that the MMP licensing business should be relatively immune to market/economy downturns. If that is true, then we should see continuing income from license sales. But during this Q (Sept-Nov) we’ve seen periods of drought between license announcements of 42, 18, and now 23 days. If we get an announcement tomorrow we’d have an average of 28 days between license sales so far this Q. The past 3 Qs averages were 16 (most recent), 15, and 8.25 days between license announcements. Unless something changes, this will be the 4th Q of increasing droughts. Remember, all perspective buyers will use every delay possible to keep from putting out cash – especially in hard times.

The “Data Sharing and Secure Data Solutions” (software biased) part of PTSC’s business could be significantly impacted by the economy downturn. From my experience, I’d say that many businesses will use the old “golden rule” for justifying capital expenditures during a recession. If a proposed expenditure doesn’t have a payback within x months it will not be approved. The “X” becomes smaller as business deteriorates. In bad times, it becomes almost impossible to get an expenditure approved if it isn’t directly related to revenue. Data Sharing and Secure Data Solutions would be a hard sell in such an economic environment. Although I’m sure that the glossy sales pitch is filled with conditional $ savings, loss avoidance $, and intangibles, cash is king and will be hard to pry from perspective private or government customers.

Given my above outlook, I’d say we need an increasing rate of license sales to be able to ride out this recession without going down to single digit SP.

Bottom line: This is still a good bet, but the payoff could be father out then we want.