The maintenance contract fees you describe are are classic deferred revenue items, so I'd probably say yes, that's waht it is. Any time you take cash in advance of delivering product or service it's a two sided balance sheet entry, Debit to cash ( an asset increase), credit to deferred ( an offsetting increease in liabilities) so no impact on the net balance sheet. As the income is earned, say on a monthly basis) another entry is made recognizing 12th of the income and reducing the deferred account by 12th. See, this stuff is easy.
And the only logical reason for them 1) announcing a buy back of their stock and 2) simultaneously establishing a shelf registration is as Cool describes it. Buy the stock with cash on hand but have a bunch of stock ready to acquire a company if one becomes available.
Just hope they don't go shopping because they pay terribly high premiums and the stock price gets hammered.