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CEO Corey Thomas responded that churn was consistent with levels seen at the end of the prior year, particularly in the risk management business. He clarified that the pressure on net ARR growth was more a function of softness in new business acquisition in the mid-market, rather than increased churn. He explicitly stated that the new upgrade cycle for Exposure Command was not causing deal disruption or increasing churn.

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CEO Corey Thomas noted that while traditional on-prem VM has low growth, a significant opportunity exists in integrated exposure management. He said the 2025 guidance includes modest expectations for the new Exposure Command product. Regarding sales, Thomas stated they expect productivity gains from a full year of selling the new platform with a modestly larger sales force. He acknowledged a delay in re-hiring after the 2024 restructuring, which impacted velocity, and said 2025 is about executing the planned business rotation.

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CEO Corey Thomas responded that while internal process improvements and the Command Platform launch have been successful in rebuilding the pipeline, the mix has shifted toward larger deals. He noted that over half of the Q4 pipeline consists of deals over $100,000, which are more susceptible to the current environment of elongated approval cycles, putting pressure on near-term ARR results.

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CEO Yogesh Gupta explained that ShareFile is a mission-critical service for its users, so demand has remained healthy. CFO Anthony Folger added that ShareFile's high gross margins (low 80s) set a target for future SaaS deals, and the company now has the capability to optimize acquisitions to that level, mitigating significant dilution.

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CEO Yogesh Gupta attributed the momentum to the growing importance of data for mission-critical applications, while noting the lumpy nature of these enterprise deals. EVP & CFO Anthony Folger added that leveraging the platform's AI capabilities is creating more upsell opportunities. Folger also stated that there would be no material change in the investment envelope, as the company is well-positioned with its current budget and acquired technologies.

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CFO Kiran Choudary attributed the 1,400 basis point year-over-year improvement primarily to operating leverage in sales and marketing, which accounted for approximately 1,200 basis points of the gain. Key drivers included increased sales productivity from having more products to sell, better sales enablement, and the natural efficiency of a growing renewals base. He also noted that larger deal sizes are a contributing factor, evidenced by the increasing ARR contribution from customers with over $100,000 in ARR, which now stands at 84%.

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CEO Bipul Sinha attributed the strong DSPM traction to the growing need for complete cyber resilience, especially with the rise of generative AI. CFO Kiran Choudary clarified that while DSPM deal volume is growing, it's still a smaller part of the business and is not materially impacting overall sales cycle lengths. He explained that free cash flow headwinds are related to shorter contract and invoicing terms for cloud and SaaS products, not consumption-based pricing, and expects this modest compression to continue.

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CEO Bipul Sinha stated that Salesforce's acquisition validates Rubrik's strategy of protecting mission-critical SaaS data, emphasizing that customers prefer a single, unified platform. He asserted that Rubrik wins the vast majority of deals due to its integrated architecture. On DSPM, he noted it is integral to cyber resilience, with demand accelerated by GenAI, and confirmed that Rubrik now has over 50 DSPM customers.

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CEO Jay Chaudhry stated that while macro scrutiny exists, Zscaler's value proposition of providing superior security while also reducing costs is a powerful driver. He noted that larger platform deals deliver greater savings, creating a compelling business case for CFOs. CFO Remo Canessa added that the guidance reflects this strong demand but remains prudent, not assuming a strong federal contribution in the second half.

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CFO Remo Canessa clarified that the Q2 billings guidance is actually up and that the company passed the entire Q1 beat through to its full-year guidance. He emphasized that the primary driver of seasonality is the scheduled billings mix, which is heavily weighted to the second half (23%) versus the first half (7%), and that fundamentals like pipeline and sales execution remain strong.

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CEO George Kurtz confirmed that the CCP program utilized the Falcon Flex model and that the credits are expected to burn off in the second half of the year, creating renewal opportunities. He noted positively that customers are consuming their Flex credits 'ahead of schedule.' CFO Burt Podbere added that a significant opportunity remains, as many customers have not yet transitioned to the Flex model.

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CEO George Kurtz affirmed that Falcon Flex is a primary go-to-market motion due to its success in meeting customer needs. CFO Burt Podbere added that the model encourages higher consumption, which bodes well for future renewals as customers can easily adopt new products, driving long-term value.

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CEO Todd McKinnon acknowledged the massive market opportunity for CIAM across all sectors, including government. He noted that the CIAM business ACV grew faster than Workforce at 16%. He highlighted Okta's leadership in authenticating users for major AI chatbots, even for companies with competing workforce identity products, as an example of the broad and strategic importance of their CIAM platform. The implication is that the opportunity is large and diverse, encompassing both greenfield and competitive situations.

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CEO Todd McKinnon acknowledged that the macro environment in Europe has been consistently tougher than in North America. However, he expressed confidence in the international teams and the universal appeal of Okta's solutions. CFO Brett Tighe added that partners are a key focus for international growth and that, aside from the macro challenges, other operational metrics are not significantly different.

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CFO James Caci stated that price increases were a very small component of NRR improvement, with the primary driver being customers adopting more products from the platform. CEO Tianyi Jiang described the Google expansion as a significant new IP development, moving beyond backup to include risk intelligence and lifecycle management, positioning AvePoint as a more strategic multi-cloud partner.

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CEO F. Leighton confirmed the customer uses the full portfolio, including delivery, security, and growing compute services, and that this is factored into all guidance. He described the go-to-market transformation as a two-year process in its early stages, focused on increasing sales hunters, specialized sellers for new products, and optimizing pricing and channel strategies to align with the company's product evolution.

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CFO Ed McGowan explained that the compute business has not yet reached sufficient scale to demonstrate significant operating leverage, as it is still in an investment phase. Regarding capital expenditures, he stated that while the company is not providing 2025 guidance, he does not anticipate another heavy investment year like 2024 and expects CapEx to remain in the current range, barring any unusually large deals.

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CEO Todd Nightingale explained that the business mix has shifted significantly in terms of revenue diversification, with top 10 customer concentration dropping from 40% to 32% over the year, driven by packaged offerings targeting the mid-market. CFO Ron Kisling added that NRR expansion is expected in the second half of 2025 as it's a lagging indicator that will reflect the impact of a complete security portfolio and a sales focus on cross-selling into existing accounts.

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CEO Todd Nightingale described the top 10 customer base as remaining very media-heavy, including streaming video, gaming, and bulk downloads. CFO Ron Kisling explained that because NRR is a trailing twelve-month metric, it will recover slowly, projecting that an expansion would likely begin to be seen around the middle of next year as the 2024 headwinds roll off the calculation.

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CEO Matthew Prince explained that the company is shifting compensation for 'pool of funds' deals to be based on recognized revenue from customer consumption, rather than just the initial contract value. This aligns sales incentives with driving platform adoption. CFO Thomas Seifert added that the core sales structure is set for the year, with only minor tweaks expected, avoiding major disruptions.

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CFO Keith Jensen stated that the guidance reflects caution due to potential demand disruption in tariff-impacted economies like Mexico and Canada, and from a potential U.S. federal shutdown. On the supply side, he noted that since over 70% of the business is international, it would not be subject to U.S. tariffs. For the U.S. business, he expects any tariff impact would be broad-based across the industry, allowing Fortinet to maintain its pricing advantage.

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CEO Ken Xie addressed cannibalization by explaining that SASE primarily supports remote work environments, which is additive to on-premise network security firewalls. He stated that customers need the hardware firewall/SD-WAN layer to support SASE, viewing it as an additional service. CFO Keith Jensen quantified the 2026 refresh opportunity by stating it is 'a little bit more than 2x' the size of the 2023 refresh cycle, deferring further details to the upcoming Analyst Day.

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CEO Nadav Zafrir emphasized that the changes will be a gradual process. He highlighted two key structural changes: elevating the marketing leader to his leadership team and creating a new, consolidated role to lead the high-growth SaaS business (email, SASE), aligning the sales motion with different buyer profiles and consumption models.

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CFO Joe Binz stated that while specific figures aren't disclosed, Loom's Q2 revenue was slightly better than expected and reiterated guidance that it would contribute about 1.5 points to FY25 cloud revenue growth. CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes added that Loom is a stand-alone product, not bundled with other editions, and that its value is being enhanced by AI features for both video creation and consumption.

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CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes explained that while consumption pricing was historically used defensively for overages, it is now being applied to new, high-value offerings like AI virtual service agents where there is a clear, customer-driven ROI. CFO Joe Binz added that the financial model remains predominantly seat-based, with only a very small and modest amount of consumption revenue assumed in the current guidance, reflecting a conservative approach as this model scales.

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CFO Jim Benson clarified that on-demand consumption is not included in the NRR metric, which only tracks contractually committed revenue. He explained that while DPS customers expand at a greater rate, the NRR benefit is only recognized upon a formal contract expansion. This can create a time lag, as customers may consume on-demand before committing to a larger contract, but NRR is expected to benefit as the DPS model matures.

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Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora expressed strong confidence in the IBM partnership, calling it potentially the best deal the company has ever done. He confirmed their teams are proactively targeting the entire QRadar base, both on-prem and SaaS, and that the $1B pipeline is a hybrid of both. He emphasized that IBM is a key partner in providing migration services, which he believes will propel Palo Alto into a top-three SIEM player within two years.

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CFO & COO Guy Melamed stated that reaching 43% SaaS ARR mix would be impossible without existing customer conversions and noted that the Q3 conversion dollar amount was similar to Q2. He then updated the full-year guidance, stating Varonis now expects to end the year with a 49% SaaS mix, an increase from the previous target, which gives them confidence in their execution.

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CFO Josh Siegel clarified that the free cash flow guidance accounts for current spending on Post-Merger Integration (PMI) planning, investments to ensure a successful integration, and direct transactional costs such as legal and advisory fees. He also reiterated that potential interest rate movements and tax obligations were factored into the forecast.

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