Slide 6 spoke the loudest to me, maybe because it hits on my...

Slide 6 spoke the loudest to me, maybe because it hits on my current frustrations.

My frustration has really been because we have a limited insight in to the margin profile of both types of revenue. I suspect that to date most upfront revenue has actually come at a loss to ALC, or at best, breakeven. They will have been desperate to land reference sites with the technology, so a small or nil upfront margin may be acceptable. Again, it's unclear if this is the case, and whether this is just for a short time, or is a longer-term strategy.

Given the products in reality are SaaS based products, I would love to know:

- Acquisition cost per install
- Customer lifetime (might just be estimates at this point)
- Break even point at which the sales costs and any loss on the upfront  stage (if any) are recovered by cumulative customer revenue.

They really haven't spoken to any SaaS metrics at all in any presentations to date, and that's probably because even though they are revenue generating, it's still way too early in the sales growth journey to have accurate data on this (i.e. every install is so bespoke it isn't reflective of the 'norm', which may not yet exist). Going forward though, investors will want to see predictable, repeatable margins and metrics. Once these metrics become clear, investors will be able to apply them to estimates of sales velocity in order to determine what could be a suitable valuation for the business. I think to date the business hasn't attracted a bluesky valuation because the sales figures have hardly moved over the past few years (hence it's not yet a growth story).

I am highly encouraged to see their comments that FY18 recurring revenue is expected to "grow substantially", as this is what the market needs to see (as in, actual, cold hard results). The compound affect of recurring revenues from existing customers combined with new customer site sales will start to make this an exciting stock. I posted recently that CY17 has been a bit of a bummer for investors as the excitement of ALC last year wore off and reality set in. I am feeling optimistic that next year is going to be a turning point financially and will provide tangible metrics on which the market can finally start to get excited about once again. Buying at these levels may prove very rewarding for those with faith in management and the growth potential of the company. Here's to a better 2018 and the start of a sustained run for the SP!