Management claims that its Falcon platform outperforms the Microsoft alternative eight times out of ten. Crowdstrike's growth rate does not contradict this bold claim, as the number of institutional customers has increased tenfold over the last five years.

The appeal of the company's business model lies, of course, in the recurring revenues it generates through subscriptions to its platform - which is scalable and constantly enriched with new modules. Recurring sales have increased fifteen-fold in five years, while user retention remains firmly anchored at around 98%.

Gross margin is impressive - higher than Microsoft's - but the company only turned the corner a few quarters ago. Crowdstrike's problem, like that of other emerging technology players, lies in the prohibitive cost of personnel, and the hefty stock option remuneration that goes with it.

Some investors will accept this, while others will recoil from the fact that the company's three main executives received total remuneration of $185 million in 2022, including $146 million in stock options for CEO George Kurtz alone.

This represents exactly 10% of sales - sales, not profit! - which went straight into the CEO's pocket.

As usual, there is also a distressing discrepancy between the cash profit reported by management and the cash profit adjusted for the cost of stock options. This quarter, Crowdstrike claims free cash flow of $227 million, while stock options amount to $130 million.

Under these conditions, and notwithstanding its remarkable commercial success, it is still difficult to justify a valuation of x12 sales. We note in passing that the latter has deflated dramatically since the aberrations of the pandemic, when it approached a multiple of x40 sales.

Crowdstrike and Palo Alto continue to follow comparable development models, with a greater emphasis on acquisitions than the model favored by their competitor Fortinet - a familiar face on Zonebourse's quantitative selections.

The company retains an exceptional balance sheet, with $3 billion in excess cash, which it will no doubt use for further consolidation.