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 sinceanother boast was “top and bottom line excellence”. You would be disappointed. Salesforcemade a net loss of $25m on revenues of $1.8bn in the fourth quarter. Yet investors werecontent to embrace the hype: shares in the enterprise software company rose 9 per cent inafter-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 than30 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 TableauSoftware, have indeed earned a lower multiple with weaker guidance. But any widespreadcollapse 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 ofSalesforce’s size are growing at more than 20 per cent a year. Investors will still pay up forgrowth — Salesforce’s enterprise value is back up at 6 times forward sales — they are justdemanding 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 itfor one product line: there should be more opportunity to cross-sell its sales, service andmarketing clouds. The company now crows about signing “nine-figure” deals, apparently thefruit of chatting up chief executives at Davos. It also bumped up its revenue estimate to $8.1bnin 2017 from $6.7bn reported on Wednesday for the 2016 fiscal year. The bottom line has notshowed a profit in five years, but net cash from operations was $460m in the quarter and cashflow 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’sthesaurus.
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。
