Netezza actually did 8 new deals last quarter.

You’re correct in saying that we are generally doing fewer deals at a higher average deal size. You’re also correct in surmising that we are doing less revenue - although I wouldn’t characterize it as Netezza having “much more revenue”, especially when you just consider revenue from new customers.

Netezza’s growth has been flat at 50-60% for quite a while now. In contrast, our revenue growth rate is a multiple of Netezza’s - and it’s being sustained over a period of time. As a result, we’re catching up pretty quickly.

This seems to me a classic case of a first mover on a proprietary platform being challenged by a fast follower on a non-proprietary platform. The advantage of the latter is the ability to bring large partners to bear. In our case, we are partnering closely with EMC & Dell globally and just announced an OEM deal with Bull in Europe. We’re seeing more and more prospects that won’t consider Netezza for these reasons.

Stuart