I'm sorry but first the majority of software companies focus their sales compensation on the contract value (TCV) rather than the profitability. It's not genera

I'm sorry but first the majority of software companies focus their sales compensation on the contract value (TCV) rather than the profitability. It's not generally the sales teams job to evaluate profitability, that the product/commercial teams job by setting out the lines of discount. The reason is that for most tech companies you want to maximise your market reach. More importantly, I wouldn't trust a word that Larry Ellison says - particularly when the primary purpose of the article was to boost the Oracle share price by explaining that Sun would be additive to that quarters profits. I'm not saying that Scott McNeally or Jonathan Schwartz were great execs - I have no idea - but I think you have to look at the goal of the article.