our software products and service levels. We believe this will lead to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty and help us achieve our goal of becoming our customers’ leading technology advisor.

 

Software License Updates and Product Support:   Substantially all of our customers purchase software license updates and product support when they acquire new software licenses. In addition, a substantial majority of our customers renew their software license updates and product support contracts annually. The growth of software license updates and product support is influenced by three factors: (1) the acquisition of PeopleSoft’s support contract base, (2) the renewal rate of the subscription base eligible for renewal in the current fiscal year and (3) the amount of new product support contracts associated with the sale of new software licenses.

 

As a result of the acquisition of PeopleSoft and other businesses, we recorded adjustments to reduce support obligations assumed in business acquisitions to their estimated fair value at the acquisition dates. Software license updates and product support revenues related to support contracts in the amount of $320 million that would have been otherwise recorded by PeopleSoft and other acquired businesses as independent entities, were not recognized in fiscal 2005. As customers renew these support contracts, we will recognize revenues for the full value of the support contracts as deferred revenues and recognize the related revenue ratably over the contract period.

 

As our product support subscription base grows, the renewal rate has a larger influence on the software license updates and product support revenue growth rate and the amount of new software license revenues has a diminishing effect. Therefore, the growth rate of software license updates and product support revenues do not necessarily correlate directly to the growth rate of new software license revenues. For example, if new software license revenues remained constant, license updates and product support revenues would continue to grow as a result of the incremental license updates and product support revenues associated with new software license revenues, assuming renewal and cancellation rates stayed relatively constant. We believe that software license updates and product support revenues will continue to grow as we anticipate that a substantial majority of our customers, including customers with PeopleSoft licenses, will renew their product support contracts and the sale of new software licenses will increase our subscription base.

 

Services Business

 

Our services business consists of consulting, advanced product support and education revenues. Services revenues represent 20% of our total revenues, and this business has significantly lower margins than our software business.

 

Consulting:   Consulting revenues tend to lag software revenues by several quarters since consulting services, if purchased, are typically performed after the purchase of new software licenses. Excluding revenues earned from PeopleSoft consulting contracts, consulting revenues have declined in recent periods due to a shift in the mix of resources to