Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Katy Huberty - Morgan Stanley.
Katy Huberty - Morgan Stanley
Can you just go through in a little more detail some of the response that you’ve received from customers and partners after the management changes and all of the investigation headlines over the last six months and specifically can you give some anecdotes around some of the disruption that you may have seen in the deal pipeline?
Sujal Patel
On the first part of your question, I spent the better part of a month following the leadership transition talking to about 100 of our top prospects making a connection with all of the key decision-makers and explaining the rationale for the transition as well as the fact that Isilon was going to be a safe bet for the future. I received incredibly positive feedback from many of these customers who I have built personal relationships with over the course of the last seven years. And so, I’d say that was very positive.
With respect to the audit committee’s review of our revenue recognition, we certainly believe that, that review process, and more particularly the uncertainty that it placed around our business had an impact on our ability to close sales in Q4. And in particular, we think that that impact was most profound with new customers, where we were engaged in a highly competitive sales cycle. With the conclusion of the audit committee’s review, we expect that that effect will subside.
Katy Huberty - Morgan Stanley
And Sujal, where are you in the process of building out the executive team. Do you have more hires to do and when should we expect a new team to be fully up and running?
Sujal Patel
Just like building a good company as you are building an executive team, there is always going to be some change. But, near term on my mind are two key additional members of the management team that I expect to have news about in the coming quarters.
One of those is a Chief Financial Officer to allow Bill Richter, our Interim CFO, to return to his normal duties in our finance department, accounting department. And second, a Senior Vice President of Operations to really help us drive the business from a gross margin perspective and a manufacturing and supply chain perspective.
Katy Huberty - Morgan Stanley
We haven’t heard from you given the investigations since the macro environment deteriorated. Is the growth opportunity big enough that you can grow through a slowdown or has there been some disruption at some of the large enterprise accounts?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
