Innovation Company is thinking about marketing a new software product. Upfront costs to market and develop the product are $4,900,000. The product is expected to generate profits of $1,300,000 per year for ten years. The company will have to provide product support expected to cost $91,000 per year in perpetuity. Assume all income and expenses occur at the end of each year.

a. What is the NPV of this investment if the cost of capital is 4.75%? Should the firm undertake the project? Repeat the analysis for discount rates of 1.15% and 22.85%, respectively.

b. How many IRRs does this investment opportunity have? (Hint: Consider the two alternative discount rates we used in our analysis in part a.)

c. Can the IRR rule be used to evaluate this investment? Explain.