Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And I think that was part of your comment that you made this came to us through Ipswitch in 2019. So I think those things are all really important, but I don’t want to imply that we have not taken security seriously all along. We actually do. We have — we use industry-leading code scanning software to scan our code for vulnerabilities. We have hackers come in and test our software for — to find vulnerabilities if they can. I mean it’s a multi-faceted approach and we have a very strong response team in case something does go wrong. So I don’t want you to think, Pinjalim, that now we will think about other product security. We have actually taken product security very, very seriously all along, but this also creates an opportunity for us to see if there other things where we ought to improve.

Pinjalim Bora: Got it. And one question on just the M&A front. I’m wondering if the wave of investments in generative AI companies could be good for you maybe as VCs kind of reprioritize their portfolio. Could that actually drag down the exit multiples for some traditional assets?

Yogesh Gupta: I think that this is always, Pinjalim, one of the fun things about being who we are, right? The VC world usually moves to the next shiny object. And so the workhorse businesses that got created over the last decade or last 15 years that become really, really strong. They then become not that interesting to VCs, right? And when that happens, that basically means that their valuations do change. And so, you’re absolutely correct. I think that it will create an opportunity for us to pick up vendors just pick up other companies. I’ll give you a very interesting example, Pinjalim, I’m sure you noticed this, right? When cloud became really, really exciting, on-prem software company valuations came down, even though we know that on-prem software companies are — have greater — better gross margins and all that good stuff.

And so from the kind of business we run, I think, we will find other companies that are really good companies in our industry, which are now less interesting to VCs who might say, you know what, the combination of capital being scarcer and there is some hot stuff going on with generative AI, let’s put our money to work there. So I think that’s a really astute observation, Pinjalim.

Pinjalim Bora: Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question and that will come from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Brent Thill: Thanks. I was curious if you could drive into the strength in the customer demand. You had mentioned strength, it sounded like it was no waiver in demand. Maybe if you could just unpack where you’re seeing the strongest signals from your customers and excitement. And if I could also drill a little into MarkLogic. You mentioned that was a bit better. Can you remind us what revenue you recognized this quarter from MarkLogic and any other color that you can share? Thanks.

Yogesh Gupta: I will let Anthony come in on the MarkLogic part and share numbers around that. But I will — I think overall in terms of demand, I mean, Brent, it’s actually been a really wonderful to see, as I mentioned, across the board. Customers are looking to do things with products that they already know how to use, right? So that’s one of the reasons why expansions are really sort of a big part of our business, whether it is a product like OpenEdge where customers are saying you know I’ll give you an interesting example about an OpenEdge customer, right? And I won’t name names because sometimes it’s a bit challenging, but I’ll give you the example anyway. The customer has spent the last five years thinking that they needed to find a different platform.