How's Business? Answers from Technology Conference Calls

There have been several indications that U.S. businesses may be cutting back spending in recent months. We review some of the recent conference call transcripts to see how leading technology companies answer the question: "How's business?"

Leo Apotheker

Let me maybe try to answer your two questions on Germany and the U.S. Let me start with the U.S. first. We did not see any material change in the spending environment in the U.S. It was as expected, not better, not worse -- steady as it goes. We have no reason to believe that that will change.

(Excerpt from the full SAP conference call transcript)

Heather Bellini - UBS

Thank you and congratulations on a very good quarter. Safra, I was wondering if you could help us out with two questions. One, what do you think was behind the strength in new license sales this past quarter? How much of it do you think was related to changes in execution that you put in place post the November results?

The second thing would be many have been nervous about enterprise spending trends, given some of the missteps from some of the big software companies over the past few quarters. Can you give us your view on the macro environment right now? Thank you.

Safra A. Catz

Sure, and you know, Charles, you should add in on the first -- on either question, actually. The reality is that the anomaly is not this quarter at all. It is really last quarter, and as we told you, we had a blockbuster Q4 in ’06 and Q1 was again fantastic. Q2, I think you basically saw that we felt we had some execution issues out in the field, really focused mostly around North America. Charles and Keith put in place -- basically everyone is focusing back on what they need to be doing and they are really just back on track.

Today is not really the announcement of the anomaly. It was really last quarter when we talked about what went down in Q2. Charles, do you want to comment on that part?

Charles E. Phillips

Yes, and that is what we felt last quarter, what we said is that our destiny was in our control and the guys focused, did a great job and came through around the world, but North America especially.

(Excerpt from the full ORCL conference call transcript)

Anne Mulcahy

I think we would not highlight any difference or change in terms of enterprise spending that we certainly are aware of in Q1. We look at pipelines and activity and feel that there is a level of consistency that we are seeing with regard to our enterprise accounts. So I know that that has become a subject of certainly debate, but I don't think we would share the view that there is any noticeable slowdown right now on the enterprise side in the US.

(Excerpt from full XRX conference call transcript)

Mark Loughridge

Well, you know, if you look at it, I am not going to make an economic forecast here. If you look at the U.S., however, we did see weakness, predominantly at the end of the quarter, in our enterprise space.

(Excerpt from full IBM conference call transcript)

It looks like the voting so far runs 3:1 in favor of "no slowdown."