Sarah Friar Goldman Sachs
Got it, very helpful and then a quick follow up for you Jim, if you don''t mind on VDI, what do you think that, as you look at 2009, in terms of deployment, what gets people from pilots into larger scale deployments? And maybe the other way to ask it is, what''s the gating factor? Is it costs? We don''t have budget yet or is it that the technology is still from mainland?
James Whitehurst
It is much more of the technology proving itself out. We feel very good about our solution, but it''s got to get through the trials and get people there. Especially, with our SPICE protocol, we are far ahead in our ability to bring a kind of real-life experience with video that others can''t. But still, it''s just a matter of some time to go through the POCs and before we move into the roll out.
Sarah Friar Goldman Sachs
Got it, okay. That''s helpful. Thank you.
Tom McCallum
Next question, please.
Operator
Your next question is from the line of John DiFucci with JP Morgan.
John DiFucci JP Morgan
Thank you. Charlie, it sounds like business momentum was good this quarter, especially, given the macro backdrop but, what accounted for the big sequential increase in prepaid expenses and other long-term liabilities? And it doesn''t look like it is a seasonal effect. And again, business looks like it was pretty good but it doesn''t, especially, what''s happening out there. But on a seasonal basis it doesn''t look like it was that much better where you''d sort of expect that.
Charles Peters
One other thing that always kicks in and it is one of the factors at the end of the year is prepaid commissions. The only item that we defer, the only expense that we defer and amortize that''s related to the subscription model is sales commissions. Our fourth quarter sales commissions are generally quite a bit higher than they are in the rest of the year and those would go into a prepaid expense. They also probably would be in the accrual item at the end of the year, and then they are amortized over the period of the subscription. The other items in the long-term obligations are probably long-term deferred tax items.
John DiFucci JP Morgan
But even on the commissions, I mean, you had a
it looks like about a $21 million sequential up-tick in prepaids and other and that''s just a lot more than I mean last year it was flattish, the year before up a little bit, 5 million, the year before actually down, no not down, up 1 million or so. Is there anything else in there that''s anything happening there, to help us understand that a little better?
Charles Peters
I think it''s mostly going to be taxes. It''s the way that deferred taxes, assets and liabilities are accounted for is going be the biggest thing.
John DiFucci JP Morgan
Okay. |