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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”.
如果说Salesforce在某一个领域是技术行业不可争议的领导者，那一定是使用形容词的最高级。该公司在周三发布的季度业绩报告中，在六句话里扎堆出现“壮观”、“史无前例”、“惊人”和“优秀”。
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.
在享用了这种夸夸其谈的主菜之后，你可能会期待一碟利润小菜，尤其是因为该公司的另一个吹嘘是“顶线和底线卓越”。你会失望。Salesforce第四季度营收18亿美元，净亏损2500万美元。然而投资者很满意上述炒作：这家企业软件公司的股价在盘后上涨了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.
投资者的宽慰可以理解。今年头5个星期，Salesforce的股价因市场对软件服务(Saas)企业的前景突现信任危机而下跌逾30%。这波抛售有点偏早。一些企业，例如Tableau软件公司，确实以更弱的利润指引换来了更低的估值倍数，但还没有证据证明会有大范围的IT预算大溃散。
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.
作为创始人和首席“吹牛师”的马克·贝尼奥夫(Marc Benioff)竭力强调的是，没有很多Salesforce这般规模的公司还能每年增长20%以上。投资者还是会为增长付出高价——Salesforce的企业价值已回升至预期销售的6倍——他们只是希望看到更多证据表明它不会掉下悬崖。
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.
有一个能带来些许安慰的指标是，有72%的Salesforce客户仅使用了它一条产品线：应该有更多机会来交叉销售其销售、服务和营销云。该公司目前宣称正签署价值“9位数”的订单，显然是跟出席达沃斯的首席执行官们攀谈的结果。这也推动其2017财年的营收预期增加至81亿美元，周三发布的2016财年营收预期为67亿美元。底线已有五年没有显示盈利，但运营中的净现金流在第四季度达到4.6亿美元，而且现金流利润率也在加强。Salesforce在2017年的利润指引区间上端是每股0美元。如果这些目标能被打破，你得对贝尼奥夫的词汇表所受的压力感到担忧。
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