Operating profit was up 1 percent on a non-IFRS basis and McDermott said was against a tough comparison as operating profit a year ago was up 15 percent from the same period in 2014. IFRS operating profit fell by 9 percent based on the impact of the appreciation of SAP shares on stock-based compensation. IFRS operating profit, however, was up 25 percent for the nine months. McDermott was his usual bullish and after-tax profit was still up 19 percent for the nine months, despite the third-quarter drop. The quarterly net dropped to roughly $854 million. Third-quarter revenue was about $5.9 billion. License and support revenue rose by 5 percent over a year ago, to about $4 billion, better than the 3 percent for the same category in 2016. Cloud subscriptions and support rose to roughly $837 million, up 28 percent over last year. Noting Microsoft had implemented the company's Success Factors, its human capital management application, McDermott gave a fervent endorsement of the Microsoft relationship. "SAP and Microsoft are collaborating more closely than ever on Hana, Azure, Microsoft Office and SAP cloud applications. We are really proud of our growing partnership with Microsoft," he said.