Carl Bass
Chief Executive Officer
First of all, the emerging economies continue to grow fantastically well. We had another great quarter, but that’s quarter after quarter, year after year of good performance in the emerging economies. That clearly remains a big opportunity. Like the question a little bit ago, anti-piracy continues to be a big deal and has -- you know, has more opportunity. I think there are places in the world in some of the even less emerging economies that still present a lot of opportunity for us but it’s not only there. If you just look at international markets in general, our European business was very strong. Germany grew more than 50%, and these single data points are a little bit hard to rationalize when you hold it up against the newspaper but if you look at it over a period of time -- I mean, one of the things we talk about a lot is the diversification of our business. I think it is just important for people to remember that across industry, across geography, what diversification does, it does not mean everything is going to perform well but it also does not mean anything is ever going to perform all badly, and it’s really that mix that we see. And so we continue to see pockets here, pockets there, but I still see the opportunity in Western Europe, other parts of Asia, and I think as the U.S. economy rebounds, I think there’s plenty of opportunity for us there. The other thing we don’t spend a lot of time talking about but you’ve got to remember our market position -- we continue to be the upstarts in most of our markets, providing more value, lower cost than any of the competitors. And we do that in a kind of broad-based, [volume] way, easier-to-use products -- all the kinds of attributes that good times and bad times, kind of makes gravity on our side. People are moving to these kind of solutions because they fit their needs better and at different times, I think it’s different drivers of our business but our market position remains strong and we’ve proven over time -- I mean, if you look at any of these markets, take the manufacturing market. If you look at the design/engineering business of our competitors, they grow in low single-digits and we’re talking about growth rates in the mid- to high-20s. I mean, it’s really a completely different dynamic that’s going on there. So while the macroeconomic factors are really important to consider, I also think you need to consider the market position and our offerings against the backdrop of our portfolio, which is really broad-based and diversified.