Vice President and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank
Patrick Colville is a Vice President and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank, specializing in coverage of U.S. technology companies with a particular focus on the cybersecurity and enterprise software sectors. He follows major firms including CrowdStrike Holdings and Palo Alto Networks, and has issued ratings on 31 stocks with a demonstrated success rate of 61% and an average return of 5.4% on investment calls according to TipRanks. Colville began publishing stock ratings in 2021 and has since built a reputation for diligent analysis, ranking #2,091 among more than 9,000 Wall Street analysts and maintaining an active presence in U.S. tech market research. He holds key professional credentials required for his role, consistently delivering actionable insights and outperforming the majority of sector peers over his career at Scotiabank.
Patrick Colville inquired about the competitive environment and changes in enterprise governance bake-offs, given other competitors talking about governance.
CEO Mark McClain stated the competitive landscape hasn't changed dramatically, with strong win rates against traditional IGA players.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank sought confirmation on the magnitude of the recent price increase (around 5%) and asked if it's appropriate to back out that figure to calculate an 'underlying' growth number.
CFO Navam Welihinda confirmed the 5% figure is a rough order of magnitude but advised against a simple calculation due to factors like discounting. He recommended viewing the price increase as a lift to the year-over-year baseline rather than a major quarterly driver, stressing that the majority of Q1's outperformance was from strong execution and consumption.
Patrick Colville's colleague asked if the reported acceleration in the search business implied that the security and observability segments underperformed. He also inquired about the competitive landscape for AI enterprise search and what is needed to drive deeper customer penetration.
CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni clarified that all business segments were affected by the lower customer commitments due to sales execution issues. He noted that despite this headwind, the search business still accelerated because of strong GenAI adoption. He attributed Elastic's competitive wins in AI search to its strong brand, data incumbency, and a superior, scalable vector database with enterprise-grade features that simplify RAG implementations for developers.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank asked about the competitive landscape in observability, specifically mentioning Grafana and Chronosphere.
CEO Olivier Pomel acknowledged that the observability space has always been competitive. He stated that Datadog's winning strategy is its deeply integrated, end-to-end platform that solves more customer problems than point solutions. He emphasized that Datadog's economic model allows for greater R&D investment, enabling faster innovation and platform expansion.
Patrick Colville from Scotiabank asked about the key growth drivers beyond the current firewall upgrade cycle and inquired about Fortinet's strategy for Agentic AI security.
CEO Ken Xie identified the new "SASE firewall" as the next major growth driver. CFO Christiane Ohlgart added that refreshes from the COVID-era buildout will provide future tailwinds. COO John Whittle pointed to SASE and SecOps as incremental TAM. On AI, Xie stated that integrated security for devices and agents is critical and that Fortinet's platform approach provides a superior solution to bolt-on products.
Patrick Colville requested a deeper explanation for the sequential dip in service revenue, asking why the day-count dynamic was notable this year and whether customer appliance refreshes were a contributing factor.
CFO Keith Jensen confirmed the day-count impact was a known factor, similar to the last leap year cycle in 2021. CAO and incoming CFO Christiane Ohlgart added that it takes time for new channel programs to gain full traction and also mentioned a minor impact from churn related to acquired customers.
Patrick Colville questioned if the accounting change for ODC revenue recognition impacted other key metrics, such as the Net Retention Rate (NRR).
CFO Jim Benson and CEO Rick McConnell clarified that the ODC accounting change only impacts revenue recognition and has no effect on any other metric, including ARR or NRR. Benson reiterated that customers on the DPS model, which generates ODC, show superior metrics like higher NRR and renewal rates.
Patrick Edwin Colville asked for quantitative details on the strong performance of Dynatrace's logs business, an update on its $100 million target, and the outlook for logs in fiscal 2026.
CFO James Benson clarified the $100 million target is a consumption goal, not ARR, and expressed high confidence in exceeding it in fiscal 2026 with growth expected to be over 100%. He noted over a third of customers now use the logs solution. CEO Rick McConnell added that a significant product upgrade in October accelerated adoption trends.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank asked about Cloudflare's strategy for deepening relationships with foundation model vendors and its perspective on agentic AI security.
Co-Founder & CEO Matthew Prince stated that approximately 80% of major AI companies are customers, typically starting with security services and then expanding to Workers AI for low-latency inference. On agentic AI security, he contrasted Cloudflare's internal, integrated R&D approach with competitors' acquisition-led strategies, arguing that Cloudflare's seamless platform is already equipped with the necessary security products to support the emerging agentic web.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank asked if the CEO's comment about being willing to sacrifice margin for growth was new information or consistent with prior messaging, noting that the pace of M&A had been slower than some expected.
CEO Nadav Zafrir clarified that this was not new information but consistent with the company's stated vision to accelerate growth. He affirmed that both internal investment and acquisitions will accelerate within their articulated strategy, and that they are willing to make these investments for faster, sustainable growth.
Patrick Colville sought to clarify the timing of the 'no macro effect' commentary and asked if the company had considered pulling its full-year guidance given the uncertainty.
CFO Roei Golan confirmed the commentary reflected the current environment and that the company saw no need to alter its full-year guidance. He explained that while the Q2 guidance is cautious due to potential late-quarter volatility, current demand signals and the pipeline remain strong.
Patrick Colville from Scotiabank questioned the importance of first-party foundation models to Snowflake's strategy and asked why full-year margin guidance was not raised despite a strong Q1 performance.
CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy stated that training frontier foundation models is too expensive, so the company is not actively pursuing it. Instead, the research team focuses on areas like post-training and inference optimization while partnering with leading model providers like Meta. CFO Michael Scarpelli explained that the upcoming Snowflake Summit is a very expensive event that will impact Q2 operating margin, and they will revise full-year forecasts quarterly.
Patrick Colville asked about the competitive dynamics in core data analytics, including migration pace and pricing. He also followed up on when new products beyond Snowpark might materially contribute to revenue.
Executives described the core analytics business as best-in-class and a key growth driver. CFO Mike Scarpelli noted that while credit pricing is stable, price-performance for customers improves continuously. He reiterated that only Snowpark is included in the FY25 guide (at ~3% of revenue), with other new products expected to have a more meaningful impact in FY26.
Patrick Colville asked about the competitive threat from a large endpoint security vendor recently entering the network-based vulnerability management (VM) market and Rapid7's strategy to compete.
CEO Corey Thomas acknowledged that the standalone VM market is hyper-competitive and unattractive. He outlined a two-pronged defense strategy: first, upgrading the installed base to the integrated Exposure Command platform, which offers differentiated value beyond traditional VM and increases customer stickiness. Second, playing offense with the high-growth Detection and Response (D&R) platform, which provides another consolidation path for customers and makes them much stickier.
Patrick Colville asked for the key factors providing confidence in the guided improvement for net new ARR in the second half of 2025. He also inquired about the primary competitors for the newer D&R and Exposure Command offerings.
CEO Corey Thomas pointed to the strength and expansion of the D&R business and a stronger starting pipeline for Exposure Command. CFO Tim Adams added that seasonality is expected to be back-half weighted, similar to 2024. Regarding competition, Thomas described the MDR market as fragmented, which is favorable, and the Exposure Management market as an emerging and underserved space where Rapid7 is well-positioned despite other players also expanding into it.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank sought clarification on the preliminary 2025 outlook, asking if the forecast for 'flat to mild acceleration' should be based on the Q4 2024 exit ARR growth rate, which he calculated to be 4%.
CEO Corey Thomas confirmed the basis of the outlook is the 2024 exit rate with an expectation of flat to mild acceleration. He explained the cautious 'wait and see' approach is because while the new Exposure Command platform has shown strong early momentum, they want to observe a full deal cycle and actual conversion rates before baking more aggressive assumptions into the model. CFO Tim Adams added they assume elongated deal cycles will persist into next year.
Patrick Colville from Scotiabank sought clarification on comments about macro challenges at the end of Q1, asking if any deals were pushed. He also asked for Qualys' perspective on a competitor entering the network-based vulnerability management (VM) market and the company's defensive strategy.
CFO Joo Mi Kim clarified that no material deals were pushed, but the challenging environment led to lower-than-anticipated upsell rates from some renewing customers. CEO Sumedh Thakar commented on the competitor's move, viewing it as an acknowledgment that agent-only solutions are insufficient. He emphasized Qualys' focus on risk prioritization and remediation, noting that the company's ETM solution can ingest data from competitors, turning a competitive move into a data source for their higher-value risk platform.
Patrick Colville questioned the impressive current billings performance, asking if any one-off deals were pulled in from Q4 or pushed from Q2, and whether an LTM basis is the best way to forecast future growth.
CFO Joo Mi Kim confirmed that while some deals were pushed and pulled, it was within the normal course of business. She noted that the 14% current billings growth was higher than bookings performance due to billing schedules and suggested using a year-to-date or LTM basis provides a smoother, more indicative view of business momentum. For Q4, she guided for current billings growth to be more in line with the 7% to 9% revenue growth guidance.
Patrick Colville asked about the new co-CEOs' strategic priorities and sought to confirm the U.S. public sector's revenue contribution percentage in relation to the guidance cut.
Co-CEO Stephen Vintz confirmed the U.S. public sector is approximately 15% of total sales and that about two-thirds of the guidance revision is attributed to it. He outlined three strategic priorities: 1) Driving platform adoption with Tenable One, 2) Expanding the platform to ingest third-party data via the Vulcan acquisition, and 3) Leveraging AI as a force multiplier for insights. Co-CEO Mark Thurmond added that the go-to-market focus is on Tenable One and cloud.
An analyst on for Patrick Colville at Scotiabank asked about the lack of share repurchases in Q3 and when the growth from new products would accelerate overall growth.
CFO Steve Vintz stated that while no stock was repurchased in Q3, the company plans to do so opportunistically under its newly expanded $200M authorization. Both he and CEO Amit Yoran expressed confidence that growth will trend higher over time as exposure solutions, which are growing at 30%, become a larger part of the business mix.
Patrick Colville asked about the current competitive environment, specifically how MongoDB is positioned against hyperscalers and Postgres, and whether the dynamic has changed over the past year.
CEO Dev Ittycheria asserted that comparing MongoDB to Postgres is a 'false comparison,' as MongoDB is a comprehensive developer data platform, not just an OLTP database. He stated win rates against Postgres are 'incredibly high' when the value is explained. Regarding hyperscalers, he described the relationships as 'very positive,' often partnering to win business together.
Patrick Colville asked about the bottom line, specifically the puts and takes behind the 20% operating profit margin guidance for fiscal '26 and the implied 'snapback' to 23% in fiscal '27.
CFO Burt Podbere explained that the fiscal '26 margin guidance reflects several factors: amortized costs from the FY25 CCP, upfront investments to support scale (including reignited marketing and R&D), and increased spending on platform resiliency. He stressed that these investments are expected to yield clear ROI and that both operating and free cash flow margins are expected to expand in the second half of FY26.
Patrick Colville asked about CrowdStrike's strategy regarding 'agentic AI,' noting its current popularity and its absence from the prepared remarks.
CEO George Kurtz clarified that Charlotte AI was designed from its inception to be what is now termed 'agentic AI,' going beyond a simple copilot. He explained that Charlotte AI is built to perform work on behalf of customers, automating SOC transformation and improving efficiency. As an example, he cited a customer reducing a four-day manual reporting process to just one hour using Charlotte AI's capabilities.
Patrick Colville asked about the cRPO guidance philosophy given recent large beats and questioned why prepared remarks focused on Workforce when Customer Identity ACV growth appeared stronger.
CFO Brett Tighe reiterated the philosophy of reducing conservatism, noting that the significant Q4 upside was immediately reflected in the raised full-year revenue guidance. CEO Todd McKinnon acknowledged that both Auth0 (Customer Identity) and Okta (Workforce) had record quarters. He explained his remarks may have reflected the resurgence of the Workforce business, which is now seen as a massive opportunity on par with Customer Identity, especially as identity becomes central to enterprise security strategy.
Patrick Colville highlighted the significant improvement in profitability guidance for FY'25 and asked about the potential for similar outperformance on the initial FY'26 margin guide.
CFO Brett Tighe advised against expecting significant upside to the FY'26 margin guidance. He explained that the company intends to lean more into the growth side of the 'Rule of 40' by investing in key initiatives like product innovation, sales specialization, and partners. The profitability guidance is set at a level deemed achievable while funding these growth drivers.
Patrick Colville asked for a detailed explanation for the deceleration in total compute revenue growth from 25% to a guided 15% for the next year. He also inquired about Akamai's exposure to the U.S. Federal government.
CFO Ed McGowan explained the deceleration is due to a mix shift within compute. While cloud infrastructure services are accelerating, the 'other cloud applications' bucket is flattening to declining. This is because Akamai is transitioning legacy products (like NetStorage, transcoding, image management) to ISV partners, which has a near-term revenue impact but focuses resources on the higher-growth infrastructure services. He added that U.S. federal business is not a material part of revenue.
Asked about the balance between high profitability and investment for growth, and inquired about the adoption progress and metrics for the SolarWinds SaaS offering.
The CFO reiterated the strategy of balancing growth investments with a strong focus on profitability and efficiency. The CEO explained that SaaS adoption metrics are not broken out because the offerings are viewed as a continuum with self-hosted solutions, but noted that qualitative progress is strong.
Patrick Colville questioned the confidence behind the Q4 guidance, which implies a record sequential net new ARR. He also asked why the TTM contribution from migrations saw a slight downtick, given the successful launch of PowerCenter Cloud Edition.
CFO Mike McLaughlin explained that the larger net new ARR target is a function of a 35% larger base and that the Q4 contribution as a percentage of the full year is consistent with 2023. He attributed the migration mix downtick to normal quarter-to-quarter variability, emphasizing that the yearly trend remains strong. CEO Amit Walia added that the company has multiple growth vectors and is not reliant on a single one.
Patrick Colville of Scotiabank asked for the reason behind the slight sequential dip in the trailing-twelve-month net new ARR contribution from migrations, which went from 28% last quarter to 26% this quarter.
CFO Mike McLaughlin attributed the minor change to normal quarter-to-quarter variability, emphasizing that the metric is calculated on a TTM basis specifically to smooth out such noise. He encouraged focusing on the overall upward trend and reaffirmed the medium-term expectation for migrations to contribute 30% to 33% of net new ARR.
Patrick Colville asked for the proportion of new and upsell business from ZPA and ZIA in fiscal 2024, and inquired about the sustainability and remaining TAM for these core product lines.
CEO Jagtar Chaudhry stated that ZPA now accounts for over 40% of the new business mix when combined with ZIA. Regarding the TAM, he emphasized the significant remaining opportunity, noting that Zscaler has only penetrated 35% of the Global 2000 and a smaller fraction of those are over $1 million in ARR. He sees a large runway to both land new logos and expand within the existing customer base.