Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator instructions) We’ll take our first question from Dan Ives with FBR.
Dan Ives – FBR
Yes, a few questions. First, what gives you confidence that you are going to close 50% of those customers this quarter? Can you just elaborate on that on what you are seeing?
Gene Hodges
Yes, we've already closed a good number of them and are as you would expect very much on top of those deals. So they are fairly qualified.
Dan Ives – FBR
Okay. And then, can you talk about – I mean, if you can remember, last quarter you guys beat guys and this quarter you missed. When you think about the next few quarters in terms of costs, what are the sorts of levers on the cost side? I mean, you said you are expecting $5 million increase second half. Could that be ratcheted down based on what you see? Just kind of walk us through how you look at expenses second half.
Doug Wride
Well, it could be ratcheted down further, but that’s not our intention, Daniel. It's important to us to continue to be prepared for the opportunities and to continue the strength of our product offering and sales force investments that we've made.
So what we are looking at this point is reevaluating aggressively what we have been spending and making changes in that and then evaluating what we have intended to add and about cutting that in half. So – and most of that’s labor driven, whether it's compensation, benefits, officing, you name it. As a software company, that’s our big variable.
Dan Ives – FBR
Okay, thanks.
Kate Patterson
Next question, please?
Operator
Next, we'll go to Phil Winslow with Credit Suisse.
Phil Winslow – Credit Suisse
Hi guys. I was just wondering if you could give us a little more detail, just volume by geography. Obviously, you talked about some business over in Europe, but Gene, kind of when you think about the covert of your business, obviously unemployment has increased here in the U.S., it's been increasing in Europe. Which geography do you see as recovering faster than – sort of any indication of sort of lulls of shelf out there that we might need to worry about? Thanks.
Gene Hodges
I think we would see what's fairly consistent demographically. Asia is in much better shape than the other two regions economically. The U.S. might be a little bit ahead of Europe. The main difference in our own execution is we are a little bit more mature in selling our new products in the U.S. So I think we've been able to perform a little bit better in the recessionary environment. We think we have a good chance of bring more type of behavior out of Europe and Asia in the second half.
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