The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: George Notter - Jefferies - Analyst
: Hi, guys. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask, Shuky, you were talking about, I think at different points in your monologue, the
pipeline of projects that are significant that are out there. Is there something changing in the marketplace that's driving that pipeline?
And could you talk about the genre of customers or types of projects that you're seeing? Any more details on that would be great.
Thanks.
Question: George Notter - Jefferies - Analyst
: If I go back to the fall, I think in talking with you guys, you were talking a bit more about how it was getting hard to close deals and
get customers to commit and get projects moving. It sounds like there's been a change in the environment. I guess, I'm just pushing
back here.
I'm wondering what's changed that's just driving that improvement? Or is that something that indeed is not the case? Like what can
you tell us there? Thanks.
Question: George Notter - Jefferies - Analyst
: Thank you.
Question: Tim Horan - Oppenheimer - Analyst
: Just back on the pipeline question. Are you seeing an improvement in spending on some of the legacy projects that had kind of
slowed down a lot last year? Or is it more on the cloud side where that's kind of accelerating? Yeah.
Question: Tim Horan - Oppenheimer - Analyst
: Do you think the legacy might kick back in at some point or is everyone's pretty committed to the new stuff?
Question: Tim Horan - Oppenheimer - Analyst
: And you mentioned, I think, 10 proof of concept projects for AI. Can you give a little maybe more update? I guess, Shuky, what do
you personally think AI could do for the carriers? Can it materially lower their expenses over time and improve quality and maybe
drive some new revenues and what's it kind of take to implement it?
Question: Tal Liani - Bank of America - Analyst
: My question is about general growth, and it's more specifics about breaking down the growth. When I look at your numbers, and I
tried to take kind of a bird's eye view 1.7% growth on a like-to-like is good, but it's just not that this kind of the momentum we would
like to see.
And the question is, first of all, if I break it down and I try to understand, okay, cloud contributed and what happened with service
providers, what happened to big customers versus smaller customers, can you break down this 1.7% to better understand what are
the components of it so that we can link it to the future?
In the future, the question about the future is what could change such that your growth could be on a sustainable basis at a higher
level? And what are the things that you're working on today that could change the growth trajectory? Because 2% is kind of the low
average. It's not even the midpoint average of the company --
Question: Tal Liani - Bank of America - Analyst
: Great. Thanks so much. The second question I have is about just to understand your large customer exposure. So you spoke about
implementation of the deal that you wanted, AT&T. As much as you can provide numbers kind or trends within your big customers,
can you talk about any concentration you had in the past?
And any projects that are ending projects that are starting kind of -- if I focus on the big customers that you have and that represent
-- I don't remember the current number, it used to be about 60% of revenues, what are the trends within that group, the group of
giant service providers?
Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel - Analyst
: Hi, thank you very much. Shuky, I just want to ask you again about the growth in the backlog, and it seems great that we have kind
of a leading indicator that something is stepping up. But it's a backlog. We're kind of stripping out some of the exited business, I
believe.
And is there anything unusual that we should think about this backlog? The way to think about the backlog after you're exiting some
of the business? Is there any more pronounced seasonality in any of it?
And then just the step up in backlog, were there some particular types of contracts that drove the growth sequentially, moving it
up $80 million? Or just is there any more color you can give into the growth in this backlog?
Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel - Analyst
: Okay. And just on the acquisition, the Profinit acquisition. As we're looking at the organic growth in the business, if you factor in
both the currency and the Profinit, would the midpoint of the revenue guidance be going down if you did not have that acquisition?
And how much is that acquisition adding to the backlog, so we can kind of look at things a little bit on an apples-to-apples basis?
Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel - Analyst
: Okay. And then if I can squeeze in one more. Just on the AI side, there's a lot of POCs and what do you think is the gating factor to
kind of landing a big deal? Is it the readiness on the client side? Is it getting more comfortable with what's offered? Is it proving out
enough return on investment, given the risk in terms of changing some their ways that they operate? Can you just talk a little bit
about that?
Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel - Analyst
: Okay. Thank you.
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