“With our continued migration to the cloud, we expect that we will continue to win big deals that are more subscription driven than license driven.”

In context

“through technical innovation, strategic acquisitions, stock repurchases, prudent use of debt and a dividend. This quarter, we repurchased 1.8 million shares for a total of $150 million. In addition, we paid out dividends of $863 million in the quarter. And the Board of Directors increased the quarterly dividend 25% from $0.32 to $0.40 per share. Our financial strategy remains focused on growing non-GAAP operating and pre-tax income while substantially increasing cloud revenue growth. And given increasing customer interest in our cloud technologies, we will continue to prudently invest to meet this demand. As a reminder, because now we're going to talk about Q4, last Q4, we had a spectacular double-digit revenue growth rate, highlighted by 25% constant currency growth in software license. With our continued migration to the cloud, we expect that we will continue to win big deals that are more subscription driven than license driven. These big subscription wins add to the backlog and are recognized over time rather than upfront. That is exactly what we want to see as our cloud business continues to see excellent growth. So now let me turn to my guidance for Q4, which I'll provide on a non-GAAP basis. Now assuming the currency exchange rates remain the same as they are now, currency would have a 2% negative effect on total revenue and at least 3% plus negative effect on EPS in Q4. But as I say every quarter, the actual currency impact may be very different by quarter end. Okay. Here we go. Total revenues for Q4, including Cerner, are expected to grow from 17% to 19% in constant currency, and thus are expected to grow 15 to 17 in USD. Total cloud growth, including Cerner, is expected to grow from 51% to 53% in constant”