Most of that is attributable to a drop in sales & marketing expenses from 69% of turnover in 2010 to 60% for 2011 and 2012. If we scale their 2011 and 2012 S&M expenses up to 69% their net margin for the three years becomes {-21%, -14%, -16%} instead of its present {-21%, -6%, -9%}. The rest is largely cutting R&D. (The 2% blip for FYE 2012 is attributable to other expenses, which "consists primarily of the changes in the fair value of our preferred stock warrants, interest expense on our outstanding debt and interest income on our cash balances" - IPO-related.)
Given that they expect "operating expenses to increase over the next several years as we hire additional personnel, particularly in sales and marketing," I don't know if that is sustainable and thus indicative of any strategic brilliance.
It's enterprise software and they are the market leaders for the whole "unstructured data analysis" segment (which is a real segment, and has real demand)
That makes the business essentially a sales organization with a R&D wing. The CEO "is well known for taking Hyperion from $500M in 2001 to revenues of almost $1B in 2007"[1], so he seems to understand that process well.
Do they have a viable business or is this just another "inflate and escape" company?