We assisted them in setting up their trading environments...

We assisted them in setting up their trading environments because we had the resources to and it was so we could earn future profits from them. The work wasn't done at a loss even if revenue wasn't immediately realised. Simple, and pretty standard practice.

Would we not have helped them set up their environments if there were no performance incentives attached? Difficult to answer, so not a convincing argument.

Fino and Gibi couldn't have built CRM+trading platforms within that short time frame for 'cheap' fees. Not feasible.

And who cares if Fino and Gibi are smaller than Microsoft? The scenario is valid so long as they're in the same line of business.

And even if in the worst case we consider the work as being subcontracted, so??? Must JK not do what he thinks will generate future revenue for ISX because he is worried people will complain the work was subcontracted? Companies frequently subcontract anything that's non-core business. The argument should not be whether it was core-business or not - it should be whether it should be recognised as revenue within the accounting standard being used and if the revenue was valid per the performance agreement - as long as it was done with the intention of bringing in future revenue.