I'm of two minds on it. On the one hand, revenue recognition rules seem to lag common practices in our industry. They're wacky for domain registrations and absolutely insane for e.g. virtual currencies used to purchase improvements in video games. (If I sell you four dragon eggs for $10 and you spend 1 dragon egg on a Sword of Dragonslaying, do you know how much revenue I can recognize? Make a guess. Answer: I have to estimate your lifetime as a player given my best data of player behavior, subtract the age of your account, and pro-rate $2.50 over the remaining days of your estimated life.)
On the other hand, most time when tech companies chafe under GAAP restrictions, it is because they're trying "creative accounting" in the abusive rather than the creative senses of the term. Salesforce, for example, is periodically annoyed that they have to account for stock-based compensation to employees. Well, yeah, you can't simultaneously say "Equity grants are why people work for startups" and also say "But on the other hand they're totally free." They also have some other things which are apparently allowed in their GAAP accounting but... are rather aggressive, like $3.5 billion in goodwill on the balance sheet.
Disclaimer: I have in the past held, and currently hold, options positions which express the opinion that CRM is far overvalued and which profit if the market decides to agree with me.
On the other hand, most time when tech companies chafe under GAAP restrictions, it is because they're trying "creative accounting" in the abusive rather than the creative senses of the term. Salesforce, for example, is periodically annoyed that they have to account for stock-based compensation to employees. Well, yeah, you can't simultaneously say "Equity grants are why people work for startups" and also say "But on the other hand they're totally free." They also have some other things which are apparently allowed in their GAAP accounting but... are rather aggressive, like $3.5 billion in goodwill on the balance sheet.
Disclaimer: I have in the past held, and currently hold, options positions which express the opinion that CRM is far overvalued and which profit if the market decides to agree with me.