We know we can do acquisitions in parallel right now. So we are very comfortable for that. So we are or a full court press. Relative to valuations, much better than they were a year ago, much better than they were two years ago. The other thing that’s very interesting is, as we all know, the financial markets are pretty tight. So if companies are in growth mode, even though if they are not profitable, in particular, if they are not completely profitable right now and there’s always synergies for an acquisition, their ability to go to a bank and get funding right now is closed off, that’s not possible. So they are facing some sort of transaction and we are a comfortable place to go. Our strategy on acquisitions is that we buy the technology, but equally important is we bring the people in.
We want them to be part of the long-term. We did that with the Starboard acquisition, all of those folks are still here. We did it with all our prior acquisitions and those folks are predominantly still here and even some of them that were 10 years ago. So we have a home for them. We can let them fulfill their vision, still see their product and their strategy they put together play out, only we give them comfort, we give them the strength of a very viable company and we give the momentum and more presence than they have at their current operations. So we are a safe home when they have to go do a transaction or safe and comfortable home that they can still fulfill their vision. So we believe that gives us a bit of an advantage in this still relatively competitive market out there.
So we are finding pretty good stuff. So thank you for giving me a platform for getting a few of those points in, Anja.
Anja Soderstrom: Okay. Thank you and that was all for me.
Allan Dow: Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us.
Operator: And our next question comes from Matthew Galinko. Your line is open.
Matthew Galinko: Hey. Thanks for taking my question. Can you talk about how the pricing environment in effect is changing given some of the elongation of the sales cycle you mentioned, I think, for quest for justifying ROI from the deal? So is there any — how much pushback are you seeing on price, does that result in more competition or more competitive bidding on projects? Just what are you seeing?
Allan Dow: Pricing hasn’t changed much. It’s pretty much the same landscape. I think we are — we have all — this is a mature market, even though there’s new technologies out there it’s a mature market. The value proposition challenge, so really no change there. Our average discounts have been unchanged for several years now and we always get pressure. So as soon as you get to the procurement department, you are the highest bidder and you are the worst bunch of folks that are out there and we are trying to fleet some. But that’s the job of the procurement department. So we get pretty comfortable and have a good chuckle about that every time we hear it. But the pushback, Matt, good question, the pushback that is coming in isn’t so much that the price is too high.
