The following description of risk factors include any material changes to, and
supersedes the description of, risk factors associated with our business previously disclosed in Part I, Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on February 26, 2016, under the
heading Risk Factors. Our business, financial condition and operating results can be affected by a number of factors, whether current known or unknown, including but not limited to those described below, any one or more of which could,
directly or indirectly, cause our actual operating results and financial condition to vary materially from past, or anticipated future, operating results and financial condition. Any of these factors, in whole or in part, could materially and
adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and the price of our common stock.
The following discussion of risk factors
contains forward-looking statements. These risk factors may be important to understanding any statement in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or elsewhere. The following information should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial
statements and related notes in Part I, Item 1, Financial Statements and Part I, Item 2, Managements, Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
Because of the following factors, as well as other factors affecting our financial condition and operating results, past financial performance should not
be considered to be a reliable indicator of future performance, and investors should not use historical trends to anticipate results or trends in future periods.
If the Merger does not occur, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and
stock price.
On June 2, 2016, we entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger with affiliates of Thoma Bravo, LLC, which we
refer to as the Merger Agreement. We refer to these entities collectively as Thoma Bravo. Upon completion of the merger contemplated by the Merger Agreement, we will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Thoma Bravo and will cease to be publicly owned
and traded. There are, however, many contingencies which may cause the merger not to occur.
Completion of the Merger is subject to the
satisfaction of various conditions, including. but not limited to, the absence of certain legal impediments and approval by the Companys stockholders. There is no assurance that all of the various conditions will be satisfied, or that the
Merger will be completed on the proposed terms, within the expected timeframe, or at all.
The Merger gives rise to inherent risks that
include:
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pending stockholder litigation that could prevent or delay the Merger or otherwise negatively impact our business and operations;
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the price of our common stock will change if the Merger is not completed to the extent that the current market price of our stock reflects an assumption that the Merger will be completed;
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the amount of cash to be paid under the agreement governing the Merger is fixed and will not be adjusted for changes in our business, assets, liabilities, prospects, outlook, financial condition or results of operations
or in the event of any change in the market price of, analyst estimates of, or projections relating to, our common stock;
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legal or regulatory proceedings, including regulatory approvals from various domestic and foreign governmental entities (including any conditions, limitations or restrictions placed on these approvals) and the risk that
one or more governmental entities may delay or deny approval, or other matters that affect the timing or ability to complete the transaction as contemplated;
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the ability of Thoma Bravo and its affiliates to obtain the necessary funds to complete the Merger;
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the possibility of disruption to our business, including increased costs and diversion of management time and resources;
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difficulties maintaining business and operational relationships, including relationships with customers, suppliers, and other business partners;
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the inability to attract and retain key personnel pending consummation of the Merger;
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the inability to pursue alternative business opportunities or make changes to our business pending the completion of the Merger;
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the requirement to pay a termination fee of approximately $103.4 million if we terminate the agreement governing the Merger under certain circumstances;
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developments beyond our control including, but not limited to, changes in domestic or global economic conditions that may affect the timing or success of the Merger; and
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the risk that if the Merger is not completed, the market price of our common stock could decline, investor confidence could decline, shareholder litigation could be brought against us, relationships with customers,
suppliers and other business partners may be adversely impacted, we may be unable to retain key personnel, and profitability may be adversely impacted due to costs incurred in connection with the proposed Merger.
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We target a global marketplace and compete in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive industry which
makes our future operating results difficult to predict. If we are unable to enhance products or acquire new products that respond to rapidly changing customer requirements, technological developments or evolving industry standards, our long-term
revenue growth will be harmed.
We target the global business intelligence, or BI, marketplace, which is an industry characterized
by rapid technological innovation, changing customer needs, substantial competition, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products, enhancements and services. Any of these factors can render our existing software products
and services obsolete or unmarketable. We believe that our future success will depend in large part on our ability to successfully:
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support current and future releases of popular hardware, operating systems, computer programming languages, databases and software applications
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develop new products and product enhancements that achieve market acceptance in a timely manner
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maintain technological competiveness and meet an expanding range of customer requirements.
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As
we encounter increasing competitive pressures, we will likely be required to modify, enhance, reposition or introduce new products and service offerings. We may not be successful in doing so in a timely, cost-effective and appropriately responsive
manner, or at all, which may have an adverse effect on our business, quarterly operating results and financial condition. All of these factors make it difficult to predict our future operating results which may impair our ability to manage our
business.
We may experience quarterly fluctuations in our operating results due to a number of factors which make our future results difficult to
predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or our guidance.
Our operating results may fluctuate due
to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Our past results should not be relied on as an indication of our future performance.
If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts or below any guidance we may provide to the market, the price of our common stock could decline substantially.
Our operating results have varied in the past and are expected to continue to do so in the future. In addition to other risk factors listed in
this Risk Factors section, factors that may affect our quarterly operating results, business and financial condition include the following:
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demand for our software products and services and the size and timing of orders
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market acceptance of our current products, such as QlikView
®
and Qlik Sense
®
, and future products
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a slowdown in spending on information technology, or IT, and software by our current and/or prospective customers
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sales cycles and performance of our indirect channel partners and original equipment manufacturers (known as OEMs)
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budgeting cycles of our current or potential customers
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foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations
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the management, performance and expansion of our domestic and international operations
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the rate of renewals of our maintenance agreements
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changes in the competitive dynamics of our markets
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our ability to control and predict costs, including our operating expenses
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customers delaying purchasing decisions in anticipation of new products or product enhancements by us or our competitors
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the timing of recognizing revenue in any given quarter as a result of revenue recognition rules
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the timing and amount of our tax benefits or tax expenses as a result of, among other things, complex tax laws and any changes to such tax laws in the jurisdictions in which we operate
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the seasonality of our business
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failure to successfully manage or integrate any acquisitions
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an increase in the rate of product returns
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the outcome or publicity surrounding any pending or threatened lawsuits
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general economic and political conditions in our domestic and international markets, including macroeconomic disruption or slowdown arising in connection with United Kingdom and European political and economic
evolution.
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In addition, we may in the future experience fluctuations in our gross and operating margins due to changes in
the mix of our direct and indirect sales, domestic and international revenues and expenses, and license, maintenance and professional services revenues.
We have introduced a new licensing model with Qlik Sense through the use of tokens and may implement future changes to our license pricing and
licensing model structure for any or all of our products, including increased prices, changes to the types and terms of our licensing structure and maintenance parameters. If these changes are not accepted by our current or future customers, our
business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
Based upon the factors described above and those described elsewhere
in this section entitled Risk Factors, we have a limited ability to forecast the amount and mix of future revenues and expenses, which may cause our operating results to fall below our estimates or the expectations of public market
analysts and investors.
Product enhancement and new product introductions involve inherent risks.
We compete in a market characterized by rapid technological advances in software development, evolving standards in software technology and
frequent new product introductions and enhancements. To succeed, we must continually expand and refresh our product offerings to include newer features or products, such as the launch of Qlik Sense in 2014, and enter into agreements allowing
integration of third-party technology into our products. The introduction of new products or updated versions of continuing products has inherent risks, including, but not limited to:
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product quality, including the possibility of software defects
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delays in releasing new products
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customers delaying purchase decisions in anticipation of new products to be released
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customer confusion and extended evaluation and negotiation time
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the fit of the new products and features with the customers needs
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the successful adaptation of third-party technology into our products
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educating our sales, marketing and consulting personnel to work with new products and features
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competition from earlier and more established entrants
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market acceptance of initial product releases
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marketing effectiveness, including challenges in distribution
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higher than expected research and development costs
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the accuracy of assumptions about the nature of customer demand.
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If we are unable to
successfully introduce, market, and sell new products and technologies, enhance and improve existing products in accordance with our stated release cadence in a timely and cost-effective manner, and properly position and/or price our products, our
business, results of operations, or financial position could be materially impacted.
If new industry standards emerge or if we are unable to
respond to rapid technological changes, demand for our software products may be adversely affected.
We believe that our future
success is dependent in large part on our ability:
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to support current and future industry standards, including databases and operating systems
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to maintain technological competiveness
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meet an expanding range of customer requirements, including cloud-based programming or software-as-a-service licensing structures
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to introduce new products and features for our customers.
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The emergence of new industry
standards in related fields may adversely affect the demand for our existing software products. Our business and results of operations may be adversely affected if new technologies emerged that were incompatible with customer deployments of our
software products. We currently support Open Database Connectivity, or ODBC, and Object Linking and Embedding Database, or
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OLEDB, standards in database access technology. If we are unable to adapt our software products on a timely basis to new standards in database access technology, the ability of our software
products to access customer databases could be impaired. In addition, the emergence of new server operating systems standards could adversely affect the demand for our existing software products. Our software products currently require the Windows
Server operating system when deployed on a server, as used in most multi-user deployments. If customers are unwilling to use a Windows Server, we may not be able to achieve compatibility on a timely basis or without substantial research and
development and support expense. We currently support all generally available client operating systems that run industry standard web browsers, but we cannot provide assurance that we will be able to support future client operating systems and web
browsers in a timely and cost-effective manner, if at all.
The markets for our software products and services are also characterized by
rapid technological and customer requirement changes. In particular, our technology is optimized for servers utilizing the x86 and x64 families of microprocessors. If the speed and performance of these microprocessor families do not continue to
increase at the rates we anticipate, our software may not attain the performance speed and capabilities that we expect. Also, if different microprocessor architecture were to gain widespread acceptance in server applications, we may not be able to
achieve compatibility on a timely basis or without substantial research and development and support expense. Our delay or inability to achieve compatibility with different microprocessor architecture or other technological change or in satisfying
changing customer requirements could render our existing and future products obsolete and unmarketable. As a result, we may not be able to accurately predict the lifecycle of our software products and services, and they may become obsolete before we
receive the amount of revenues that we anticipate from them.
Our long-term growth depends on our ability to enhance and improve our
existing products and to introduce or acquire new products that respond to these demands. The creation of BI software is inherently complex. The development and testing of new products and product enhancements can require significant research and
development expenditures. As a result, substantial delays in the general availability of such new releases or significant problems in the installation or implementation of such new releases could harm our business, operating results and financial
condition. We may not successfully develop and market product enhancements or new products that respond to technological change or new customer requirements. Even if we introduce a new product, we may experience a decline in revenues of our existing
products that is not fully matched by the new products revenue. For example, customers may delay making purchases of a new product to make a more thorough evaluation of the product, or until industry and marketplace reviews become widely
available. In addition, we may lose existing customers who choose a competitors product rather than to migrate to our new product. This could result in a temporary or permanent revenue shortfall and harm our business, operating results and
financial condition. If we are unable to develop or acquire enhancements to, and new features for, our existing products or acceptable new products that keep pace with rapid technological developments and customer requirements, our products may
become obsolete, less marketable and less competitive, and our business, operating results and financial condition will be harmed.
We depend on
revenue from a single software product.
Despite our release of Qlik Sense in September 2014, and the incremental revenue derived
from Qlik Sense during the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 and the expected revenue to be derived in the future, we have and continue to be heavily dependent on our QlikView product. Our business would be harmed by a decline in demand
for, or in the price of, our software products as a result of, among other factors:
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any change in our pricing model
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any change in our licensing model
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any change in our go to market model
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support, research and development or other expenditures undertaken in attempts, whether or not successful, to develop new products
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maturation in the markets for our products.
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Our financial results would suffer if the market for BI
software does not continue to grow or if we are unable to further penetrate this market.
Nearly all of our revenues to date have
come from sales of BI software and related maintenance and professional services. We expect these sales to account for substantially all of our revenues for the foreseeable future. Although demand for BI software has grown in recent years, the
market for BI software applications is still evolving. Resistance from consumer and privacy groups to increased commercial collection and use of data on spending patterns and other personal behavior and governmental restrictions on the collection
and use of personal data may impair the further growth of this market, as may other developments. We cannot be sure that this market will continue to grow or, even if it does grow, that customers will purchase our software products or services. We
have spent, and intend to keep spending, considerable resources to educate potential customers about BI software in general and our software products and services in particular. However, we cannot be sure that these expenditures will help our
software products achieve any additional market acceptance or enable us to attract new customers
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or new users at existing customers. A reduction in the demand for our software products and services could be caused by, among other things, lack of customer acceptance, weakening economic
conditions, competing technologies and services or decreases in software spending. If the market and our market share fail to grow or grow more slowly than we currently expect, our business, operating results and financial condition would be harmed.
Our operating income (loss) could fluctuate as we make further expenditures to expand our operations in order to support additional growth in our
business.
We have continued to make significant investments in our operations to support additional growth, such as hiring
substantial numbers of new personnel, investing in research and development, investing in new facilities, acquiring other companies or their assets and establishing and broadening our international operations in order to expand our business. We
intend to make additional investments in research and development, systems, infrastructure, marketing and sales personnel and to continue to expand our operations to support anticipated future growth in our business. As a result of these
investments, our operating income (loss) could fluctuate.
We rely on third-party channel partners to sell a substantial portion of our products,
and if these channel partners fail to perform, our ability to sell and distribute our products and services will be limited, and our operating results and financial condition will be harmed.
In addition to our direct sales force, we use indirect channel partners, such as distribution partners, value-added resellers, system
integrators and OEMs to license and support our software products. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2016 and 2015, transactions by indirect channel partners accounted for more than 50% of our total product licenses and first year
maintenance billings. We expect to continue to rely substantially on our channel partners in the future.
Our channel partners may offer
customers the products of several different companies, including products that compete with ours. Our channel partners may be unsuccessful in marketing, selling and supporting our products and services. If we are unable to develop and maintain
effective sales incentive programs for our channel partners, we may not be able to incentivize these partners to sell our products to end-customers and, in particular, to large enterprises. These partners may also market, sell and support products
and services that are competitive with ours and may devote more resources to the marketing, sales, and support of such competitive products. In order to develop and expand our distribution channel, we must continue to scale and improve our processes
and procedures that support our channel partners, including investment in systems and training. These processes and procedures may become increasingly complex and difficult to manage as we grow our organization.
Our ability to achieve revenue growth and operating profit in the future will depend in part on our success in maintaining successful
relationships with our current and future channel partners and their ability to license and support our software products. There can be no assurance that our channel partners will continue to cooperate with us when our distribution agreements
expire, change or are up for renewal. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with these channel partners, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed. Also, in a number of regions we rely on a limited number of
resellers, and our business may be harmed if any of these resellers were to fail to effectively sell our software in their specified geographic territories.
In addition, we rely on our channel partners to operate in accordance with the terms of their contractual agreements with us which we may
change from time to time. For example, our agreements with our channel partners limit the terms and conditions pursuant to which they are authorized to resell or distribute our software products and offer technical support and related services. We
also typically require our channel partners to provide us with the dates and details of product license transactions sold to end user customers. If our channel partners do not comply with their contractual obligations to us or if our channel
partners do not agree with changes we may make to our contractual agreements, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be harmed.
Our channel partner sales structure could subject us to lawsuits, potential liability, and reputational harm if, for example, any of our
channel partners misrepresent the functionality of our products or services to end-customers or violate laws or our corporate policies
If we are
unable to expand our direct sales capabilities and increase sales productivity, we may not be able to generate increased revenues.
We may be required to expand our direct sales force in order to generate increased revenue from new and existing customers. We have and intend
to continue to increase our number of direct sales professionals. New hires require training and take time to achieve full productivity. We cannot be certain that recent and future new hires will become as productive as necessary or that we will be
able to hire enough qualified individuals in the future. Failure to hire qualified direct sales personnel and increase sales productivity will preclude us from expanding our business and growing our revenue, which may harm our business, operating
results and financial condition.
As we continue to pursue new enterprise customers, additional OEM opportunities or more complicated deployments,
our sales cycle, forecasting processes and deployment processes may become more unpredictable and require greater time and expense.
Our sales cycle may lengthen as we continue to pursue new enterprise customers. Enterprise customers may undertake a significant evaluation
process in regard to enterprise software which can last from several months to a year or longer. If our sales cycle were to lengthen in this manner, events may occur during this period that affect the size or timing of a purchase or even cause
cancellations, and this may lead to more unpredictability in our business and operating results. Additionally, sales cycles for sales of our software products tend to be longer, ranging from three to 12 months or more which may make forecasting
more complex and uncertain. We may spend substantial time, effort and money on our sales efforts without any assurance that our efforts will produce any sales. In addition, product purchases by large enterprises are
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frequently subject to budget constraints, multiple approvals, and unplanned administrative, processing, and other delays. Finally, large enterprises typically have longer implementation cycles,
require greater product functionality and scalability and a broader range of services, demand that vendors take on a larger share of risks, sometimes require acceptance provisions that can lead to a delay in revenue recognition, and expect greater
payment flexibility from vendors. All of these factors can add further risk to business conducted with these end-customers. If we fail to realize an expected sale from a large end-customer in a particular quarter or at all, our business, operating
results, and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
In addition, we may face unexpected deployment challenges
with enterprise customers or more complicated installations of our software products. It may be difficult to deploy our software products if the customer has unexpected database, hardware or software technology issues. Additional deployment
complexities may occur if a customer hires a third party to deploy our software products or if one of our indirect channel partners leads the implementation of our solution. Any difficulties or delays in the initial implementation could cause
customers to reject our software or lead to the delay or non-receipt of future orders, in which case our business, operating results and financial condition would be harmed.
Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates may adversely affect our financial results.
We have operations in many areas of the world and are exposed to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations that could harm our business,
operating results and financial condition. A significant portion of our revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities are, and are expected to continue to be, denominated in foreign currencies, which exposes us to adverse changes in foreign currency
exchange rates. In addition, the United Kingdom held a referendum on June 23, 2016 in which a majority of voters voted to exit the European Union (Brexit), which could contribute to instability and volatility in the global financial
and foreign exchange markets, including volatility in the value of the British pound, euro and other currencies. To the extent denomination in foreign currencies does occur, transactional gains and losses, as well as translational gains and losses,
have and may continue to contribute to fluctuations in our results of operations and adjustments to our financial guidance. For example, the strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies in which we operate negatively impacted our
reported total revenue and negatively impacted our reported loss from operations during the three and six months ended June 30, 2016. These exposures may change over time as our business and business practices evolve, and they could harm our
financial results and cash flows.
Although we continue to utilize short-term foreign currency forward contracts to cover a portion of our
foreign currency transaction exposure related to certain intercompany borrowings, our policies do not allow speculation in derivative instruments for profit or execution of derivative instrument contracts for which there are no underlying exposures.
We do not use financial instruments for trading purposes and we are not a party to any leveraged derivatives. We monitor underlying market risk exposures on an ongoing basis and believe that we can modify or adapt our hedging strategies as
needed. Our decisions and hedging strategy with respect to currency risks may not be successful, which could harm our operating results. In addition, if we do not successfully manage our hedging program in accordance with accounting guidelines,
we may be subject to adverse accounting treatment, which could harm our operating results. There can be no assurance that this hedging program will be economically beneficial to us for numerous reasons; for example, hedging may reduce volatility,
but prevent us from benefiting from a favorable rate change. If we are not effective in any future foreign exchange hedging transactions in which we engage, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
For additional information on our foreign currency exchange rate risk, refer to - Foreign Exchange Risk in Item 7A -
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk, which is included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Managing our international
operations is complex and our failure to do so successfully could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We receive a significant portion of our total revenue from international sales from foreign direct and indirect operations. International
revenues accounted for approximately 69% of our total revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2016 and approximately 68% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015. We have facilities located in Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. We
expect to continue to add personnel in these and additional countries. Our international operations require significant management attention and financial resources.
There are certain risks inherent in our international business activities including, but not limited to:
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managing and staffing international offices and the increased costs associated with multiple international locations
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maintaining relationships with indirect channel partners outside the U.S., whose sales and lead generation activities are very important to our international operations
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foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations
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multiple legal systems and unexpected changes in legal requirements
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the burden of complying with a wide variety of laws, including those relating to labor matters, consumer and data protection, privacy, network security, and encryption
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tariffs, export restrictions, trade barriers and other regulatory or contractual limitations on our ability to sell or develop our products in certain foreign markets
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trade laws and business practices favoring local competition
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costs of localizing products and potential lack of acceptance of localized versions
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potential tax issues, including restrictions on repatriating earnings or the adoption of a minimum tax on adjusted unrepatriated foreign earnings and multiple, conflicting, changing and complex tax laws and regulations
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employer payroll tax withholdings with respect to exercises by employees or vesting of our equity awards
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weaker intellectual property protection in some countries
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difficulties in enforcing contracts and collecting accounts receivable, longer sales cycles and longer payment cycles, especially in emerging markets
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the significant presence of some of our competitors in certain international markets
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our ability to adapt to sales practices and customer requirements in different cultures
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political instability, including war and terrorism or the threat of war and terrorism
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adverse economic conditions, including the stability and solvency of business financial markets, financial institutions and sovereign nations and the potential impact of Brexit.
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In addition, compliance with foreign and U.S. laws and regulations that are applicable to our international operations is complex and may
increase our cost of doing business in international jurisdictions, and our international operations could expose us to fines and penalties if we fail to comply with these regulations. These laws and regulations include import and export
requirements, U.S. laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and anti-money laundering regulations, and local laws prohibiting corrupt payments. In addition, Brexit could lead to legal uncertainty and potentially divergent national laws and
regulations as the United Kingdom determines which European Union laws to replace or replicate. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to help ensure compliance with these laws as currently applicable, there can be no
assurance that our employees, partners and other persons with whom we do business will not take actions in violation of our policies or these laws. Any violations of these laws could subject us to civil or criminal penalties, including substantial
fines or prohibitions on our ability to offer our products and services in one or more countries, and could also materially damage our reputation, our brand and our international business.
Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could harm our international operations, business operating results and financial
condition and reduce our international sales.
We are required to comply with U.S. export control laws and regulations. Noncompliance with those
laws and regulations could materially harm our business.
Our solutions are subject to U.S. and European Union export controls.
U.S. export control laws and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain solutions and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments and persons and complying with export control and sanctions regulations for a particular
sale may be time-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Penalties for violations of the U.S. export control laws include substantial fines and the possible loss of export or import privileges and criminal action for
knowing or willful violations.
Further, if our operating partners fail to obtain appropriate import, export or re-export licenses or
permits, we may also be harmed, become the subject of government investigations or penalties, and incur reputational harm. Changes in our solutions or changes in export and import regulations may create delays in the introduction of our solutions in
international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our solutions globally or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our solutions to certain countries, governments or persons altogether. Any change in
export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, governments, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in
decreased use of our solutions by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our solutions to, existing or potential customers with international operations. Any decreased use of our solutions or limitation on our ability to export or sell our
solutions would likely harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Government regulation of the Internet and e-commerce and
of the international exchange of certain technologies is subject to possible unfavorable changes, and our failure to comply with applicable regulations could harm our business and operating results.
As Internet commerce continues to evolve, increasing regulation by federal, state or foreign governments becomes more likely. For example, we
believe increased regulation is likely in the area of data privacy, and laws and regulations applying to the solicitation, collection, processing or use of personal or consumer information could affect our customers ability to use and share
data, potentially reducing demand for our products and services. In addition, taxation of products and services provided over the Internet or other charges imposed by government
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agencies or by private organizations for accessing the Internet may also be imposed. Any regulation imposing greater fees for Internet use or restricting the exchange of information over the
Internet could result in reduced growth or a decline in the use of the Internet and could diminish the viability of our Internet-based services, which could harm our business and operating results.
Our business depends on customers renewing their annual maintenance contracts and our ability to collect renewal fees.
Any decline in maintenance renewals could harm our future operating results. The majority of our software licenses are sold pursuant to a
perpetual license with a fixed upfront fee which ordinarily includes one year of maintenance as part of the initial price. Our customers have no obligation to renew their maintenance agreements after the expiration of this initial period, and they
may not renew these agreements. We may be unable to predict future customer renewal rates accurately. Our customers renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their level of satisfaction with our
software products, the prices of our software products, the prices of products and services offered by our competitors, reductions in our customers spending levels or general, industry-specific or local economic conditions. If our customers do
not renew their maintenance arrangements or if they renew them on less favorable terms, our revenues may decline, our operating and financial condition will be harmed and our business will suffer. A substantial portion of our quarterly maintenance
revenue is attributable to maintenance agreements entered into during previous quarters. As a result, if there is a decline in renewed maintenance agreements in any one quarter, only a small portion of the decline will be reflected in our
maintenance revenue recognized in that quarter and the rest will be reflected in our maintenance revenue recognized in the following four quarters or more. In addition, we may have difficulties collecting renewal fees from our customers, especially
in regards to customers located in emerging international markets or markets experiencing slowed growth, recessions or other adverse economic conditions. If we are unable to collect renewal fees from customers, our business, results of operations
and financial condition will be harmed.
Our software products could contain undetected errors, or bugs, which could cause problems with product
performance and which could in turn reduce demand for our software products, reduce our revenue and lead to product liability claims against us.
Software products like ours, which consist of hundreds of thousands of lines of code and incorporate licensed software from third parties, may
contain errors and/or defects. Although we test our software, we have in the past discovered software errors in our products after their introduction. Despite testing by us and by our current and potential customers, errors may be found in new
products or releases after deployment begins. This could result in lost revenue, damage to our reputation or delays in market acceptance which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. We may also have to expend resources
to correct these defects and the resulting effects of these defects.
Our license agreements with customers typically contain provisions
designed to limit our exposure to product liability, warranty and other claims. It is possible, however, that these provisions may not be effective as a result of existing or future laws of certain domestic or international jurisdictions or
unfavorable judicial decisions in such jurisdictions, and we may be exposed to product liability, warranty and other claims. If these claims are made, our potential exposure may be substantial given the use of our products in business-critical
applications. A successful product liability claim against us could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We face intense
competition which may lead to reduced revenue and loss of market share.
The markets for BI software, analytical applications and
information management are highly competitive and subject to rapidly changing technology and evolving standards. In addition, many companies in these markets are offering, or may soon offer, products and services that may compete with our software
products.
We face competitors in several broad categories, including BI software, analytical processes, query, search and reporting
tools. We compete with large technology corporations that provide one or more capabilities that are competitive with our software products, such as Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP AG, and with open source BI vendors, including Pentaho
and JasperSoft. Open source software is software that is made widely available by its authors and is licensed as is for a nominal fee or, in some cases, at no charge. As the use of open source software becomes more widespread, certain
open source technology could become competitive with our proprietary technology, which could cause sales of our products to decline or force us to reduce the fees we charge for our products. We also compete, or may increasingly in the future
compete, with various independent competitors that are primarily focused on BI products, such as Birst, MicroStrategy, the SAS Institute, Tableau and TIBCO. We expect additional competition as other established and emerging companies or open source
vendors enter the BI software market and new products and technologies are introduced. We expect this to be particularly true with respect to our cloud-based initiatives as we and our competitors seek to provide business analytics products based on
a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, platform. This is an evolving area of business analytics solutions, and we anticipate competition to increase based on customer demand for these types of products.
Many of our competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater financial, technical, marketing or other resources and greater
name recognition than we do. In addition, many of our competitors have strong relationships with current and potential customers and extensive knowledge of the BI industry. As a result, they may be able to respond more quickly to new or emerging
technologies and changes in customer requirements or devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than us. Increased competition may lead to price cuts, fewer customer orders, reduced gross margins, longer sales
cycles and loss of market share. We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, and our business, operating results and financial condition will be harmed if we fail to meet these competitive pressures.
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Current and future competitors may also make strategic acquisitions or establish cooperative
relationships among themselves or with others. By doing so, these competitors may increase their ability to meet the needs of our current or potential customers. Our current or prospective indirect channel partners may establish cooperative
relationships with our current or future competitors. These relationships may limit our ability to sell our software products through specific distribution channels. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances among current and future competitors may
emerge and rapidly gain significant market share. These developments could limit our ability to obtain revenues from new customers and to sustain maintenance revenues from our installed customer base. If we are unable to compete successfully against
current and future competitors, our business, operating results and financial condition would be harmed.
The forecasts of market growth we have
publicly provided may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the markets in which we compete achieve the forecasted growth, we cannot assure our business will grow at similar rates, if at all.
Growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate,
including fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The forecasts we have publicly provided relating to the expected growth in the BI marketplace, cloud computing markets and technology market may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these markets
experience the forecasted growth we have publicly provided, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many factors, including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks
and uncertainties. Accordingly, the forecasts of market growth we have publicly provided should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.
Our estimate of the market size for our solutions we have publicly provided may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the market size is accurate, we
cannot assure our business will serve a significant portion of the market.
Our estimate of the market size for our solutions we
have publicly provided is subject to significant uncertainty and is based on assumptions and estimates, including our internal analysis and industry experience, which may not prove to be accurate. Our ability to serve a significant portion of this
estimated market is subject to many factors, including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, even if our estimate of the market size is accurate, we cannot assure you that
our business will serve a significant portion of this estimated market for our solutions.
A substantial customer shift from the deployment of our
software products based on a perpetual software license to our cloud services offerings could affect the timing of revenue recognition and materially adversely affect our operating results.
SaaS is a model of software deployment where a software provider typically licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand
through web browser technologies. We believe that companies have begun to expect that key software be provided through a SaaS model. We offer our software products in the form of a perpetual software license and a SaaS subscription. Expanding our
SaaS business model will require us to undertake additional substantial capital investments and related sales and support resources and personnel. If more customers were to shift to a SaaS deployment or if customers demand a SaaS-based BI software
platform sooner than we currently anticipate, we would need to undertake significant investments in order to further implement this alternative business model. If the prevalence of cloud-based data increases, current and prospective customers may
increasingly demand SaaS-based BI software platforms. Even if we undertook these investments, we may be unsuccessful in implementing a SaaS business model. Moreover, sales of a potential future SaaS offering by our competitors could adversely affect
sales of all of our existing products. In addition, increasing sales of our SaaS offering could cannibalize license sales of our on-premise desktop and server products to our existing and prospective customers, which could negatively impact our
overall sales growth. These factors could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
The payment streams and revenue recognition timing for our perpetual software licenses are different from
those for our subscription services. For perpetual software licenses, customers typically pay us a lump sum soon after entering into a software license agreement and revenue is typically recognized upon delivery of the software to the customer. For
subscription services, customers typically make periodic payments over the subscription period and revenue is typically recognized ratably over the subscription period. As a result, if a substantial number of current or new customers shift to
subscribing to our cloud services offerings instead of purchasing perpetual software licenses for our software products, the resulting change in payment terms and revenue recognition may materially adversely affect our operating results and cash
flows for the reporting periods during which such a shift occurs.
If we fail to develop and maintain our brand cost-effectively, our business may
be harmed.
We believe that developing and maintaining awareness and integrity of our brand in a
cost-effective manner are important to achieving widespread acceptance of our software products and our existing and future products and are important elements in attracting new customers and maintaining existing customers. We believe that the
importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market further intensifies. In 2014, we rebranded our company under the name Qlik. Successful promotion of our brand will depend on the effectiveness of our marketing
efforts and on our ability to provide reliable and useful products and services at competitive prices. Brand promotion activities may not yield increased revenue, and even if they do, the increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in
building and maintaining our brand. We also rely on our customer base and community of end-users in a variety of ways, including to give us feedback on our products and to provide user-based support to our other customers. If we fail to promote and
maintain our brand successfully or to maintain loyalty among our customers and Qlik Community, our user community, or if we incur substantial expenses in an unsuccessful attempt to promote and maintain our brand, we may fail to attract new customers
or retain our existing customers and our business may be harmed.
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If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, our revenues and profits could be adversely affected.
We plan to continue to expand our operations and employee headcount significantly, and we anticipate that further significant
expansion will be required. Our future operating results depend to a large extent on our ability to manage this expansion and growth successfully. Sustaining our growth will place significant demands on our management as well as on our
administrative, operational and financial resources. To manage our growth, we must continue to improve our operational, financial and management information systems and expand, motivate and manage our workforce. If we are unable to manage our growth
successfully without compromising our quality of service or our profit margins, or if new systems that we implement to assist in managing our growth do not produce the expected benefits, our revenues and profits could be harmed. Risks that we face
in undertaking future expansion include:
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training new personnel to become productive and generate revenue
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enabling partners to sell our software products
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controlling expenses and investments in anticipation of expanded operations
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implementing and enhancing our administrative, operational and financial infrastructure, systems and processes
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expanding operations in the U.S. and international regions.
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A failure to manage our growth
effectively could harm our business, operating results, financial condition and ability to market and sell our software products and services.
If
we are unable to recruit or retain skilled personnel, or if we lose the services of any of our key personnel, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, train and retain highly skilled personnel, and we face intense competition
for these employees. We may not be able to retain our current key employees or attract, train or retain other highly skilled personnel in the future. If we lose the services of one or all of our key employees, or if we are unable to attract, train
and retain the highly skilled personnel we need, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.
In addition, we
must successfully integrate new employees into our operations and generate sufficient revenues to justify the costs associated with these employees. If we fail to successfully integrate employees or to generate the revenue necessary to offset
employee-related expenses, our business and financial results could be adversely affected.
The success of our business is heavily dependent on the
leadership of key management personnel, including Lars Björk, Chief Executive Officer, and other members of our senior management team. The loss of one or more key management personnel could adversely affect our continued operations.
Our future success depends in a large part upon the continued service of key members of our senior management team. In
particular, Lars Björk, our Chief Executive Officer, is critical to the overall management of our organization, as well as the development of our brand, our technology, our culture and our strategic direction.
We have experienced significant changes, and may experience additional changes in the future, to our senior management team. For us to compete
successfully and grow, we must retain, recruit and develop key personnel who can provide the needed expertise for our industry and products. However, the market for qualified personnel is competitive and we may not succeed in recruiting additional
senior management personnel or may fail to replace current senior management personnel effectively who depart without qualified or effective successors. Any successors that we hire from outside of our company would likely be unfamiliar with our
business model and industry and may therefore require significant time to understand and appreciate the important aspects of our business or fail to do so altogether. For instance, in September 2015, Mark Thurmond joined us as our Executive Vice
President, Worldwide Sales and Services and we believe our future performance will depend significantly on our ability to successfully integrate him and other recently and subsequently hired executive officers into our management team and on those
officers ability to develop and maintain an effective working relationship. Our failure to integrate recently and subsequently hired executive officers, including Mr. Thurmond, with other members of management and key employees could
result in inefficiencies or disruptions in our sales and marketing, which would harm the sales of our products and our results of operations. Our effort to retain and develop personnel may also result in significant additional expenses, which could
adversely affect our profitability. The loss of any of our management or key personnel could seriously harm our business.
Future product development is dependent on adequate research and development resources.
In order to remain competitive, we must continue to develop new products, applications and enhancements to our existing software products.
This is particularly true as we strive to further expand our software products and product capabilities. Maintaining adequate research and development resources, such as the appropriate personnel, talent and development technology, to meet the
demands of the market is essential. Our research and development organization are principally located in Lund, Sweden; Boston, Massachusetts; Ottawa, Canada;
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Reykjavik, Iceland; Vicenza, Italy; and London, United Kingdom with the vast majority of our research and development organization located in Lund, Sweden. We may have difficulty hiring suitably
skilled personnel in these regions or expanding our research and development organization to facilities located in other geographic locations. In addition, many of our competitors expend a considerably greater amount of resources on their respective
research and development programs. Our failure to maintain adequate research and development resources or to compete effectively with the research and development programs of our competitors would present an advantage to such competitors.
If we fail to offer high quality customer support, our business would suffer.
Once our software products are deployed to our customers, our customers rely on our support services to resolve any related issues. High
quality customer support is important for the successful marketing and sale of our software products and services and for the renewal of existing customers. The importance of high quality customer support will increase as we expand our business and
pursue new enterprise customers. If we do not help our customers quickly resolve post-deployment issues and provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell our software products and professional services to existing customers would suffer and
our reputation with existing or potential customers would be harmed.
We currently utilize a combination of internal support personnel and
third party support organizations, and we cannot provide assurance that actions taken or not taken by our third party support organization will not harm our reputation or business. As we expand our sales infrastructure, we will be required to engage
and train additional support personnel and resources. Further, our support organization will face additional challenges as we enter new international markets, including challenges associated with delivering support, training and documentation in
languages required by new customers. If we fail to maintain high quality customer support or to grow our internal and external support organization to match any future sales growth, our business will suffer.
If we do not meet our revenue forecasts, we may be unable to reduce our expenses to avoid or minimize harm to our results of operations
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Our revenues are difficult to forecast and are likely to fluctuate significantly from period to period. We base our operating expense budgets
on expected revenue trends and our strategic objectives, and many of our expenses, such as office and equipment leases and personnel costs, will be relatively fixed in the short term and will increase as we continue to make investments in our
business and hire additional personnel. In the event we alter our licensing model, our ability to forecast revenue and expenses may be further hampered. Our estimates of sales trends may not correlate with actual revenues in a particular quarter or
over a longer period of time. Variations in the rate and timing of conversion of our sales prospects into actual licensing revenues could cause us to plan or budget inaccurately and those variations could adversely affect our financial results. In
particular, delays or reductions in amount or cancellation of customers purchases of our software products would adversely affect the overall level and timing of our revenues, and our business, results of operations and financial condition
could be harmed. Due to the relatively fixed nature of many of our expenses, we may be unable to adjust spending quickly enough to offset any unexpected revenue shortfall.
In the course of our sales to customers, we may encounter difficulty collecting accounts receivable and could be exposed to risks associated
with uncollectible accounts receivable. In the event we are unable to collect on our accounts receivable, it could negatively affect our cash flows, operating results and business.
Our methodologies and software products may infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties or be found to contain unexpected open source
software, and this may create liability for us or otherwise harm our business.
Third parties may claim that our current or future
products infringe their intellectual property rights, and such claims may result in legal claims against our customers and us. These claims may damage our reputation, harm our customer relationships and create liability for us. We expect the number
of such claims will increase as the number of products and the level of competition in our industry segments grow, the functionality of products overlap and the volume of issued software patents and patent applications continues to increase. We
generally agree in our customer contracts to indemnify customers for expenses or liabilities they incur as a result of third party intellectual property infringement claims associated with our products or services. To the extent that any claim
arises as a result of third party technology we have licensed for use in our product, we may be unable to recover from the appropriate third party any expenses or other liabilities that we incur.
In addition, software products like ours that contain hundreds of thousands of lines of software code at times incorporate open source
software code. The use of open source software code is typically subject to varying forms of software licenses, called copyleft or open source licenses. These types of licenses may require that any person who creates a software product that
redistributes or modifies open source software that was subject to an open source license must also make their own software product subject to the same open source license. This can lead to a requirement that the newly created software product be
provided free of charge or be made available or distributed in source code form. Although we do not believe our software includes any open source software that would result in the imposition of any such requirement on portions of our software
products, our software could be found to contain this type of open source software.
Moreover, we cannot assure you that our processes for
controlling our use of open source software in our products will be effective. If we are held to have breached the terms of an open source software license, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties to continue offering our products
on terms that are not economically feasible, to re-engineer our products, to discontinue the sale of our products if re-engineering could not be accomplished on a timely basis, or to make generally available, in source code form, our proprietary
code, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.
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In addition to risks related to license requirements, usage of open source software can lead to
greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or assurance of title, non-infringement or controls on origin of the software. In addition, many of the risks associated with
usage of open source software, such as the lack of warranties or assurances of title, cannot be eliminated, and could, if not properly addressed, negatively affect our business. We have established processes to help alleviate these risks, including
a review process for screening requests from our development organizations for the use of open source software, but we cannot be sure that all open source software is submitted for approval prior to use in our products.
Responding to any infringement claim, regardless of its validity, or discovering open source software code in our products could harm our
business, operating results and financial condition, by, among other things:
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resulting in time-consuming and costly litigation
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diverting managements time and attention from developing our business
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requiring us to pay monetary damages or enter into royalty and licensing agreements that we would not normally find acceptable
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causing product shipment or deployment delays
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requiring us to stop selling certain of our products
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requiring us to redesign certain of our products using alternative non-infringing or non-open source technology or practices, which could require significant effort and expense
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requiring us to disclose our software source code, the detailed program commands for our software
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requiring us to satisfy indemnification obligations to our customers.
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Our intellectual property rights
are valuable, and any inability to protect them could reduce the value of our software products, services and brand.
As of
June 30, 2016, we had eight issued U.S. patents and 13 pending applications for U.S. patents expiring at various times ranging from 2017 through 2032 and seven issued and 21 pending applications for foreign patents expiring at various times
ranging from 2017 through 2036. In September 2015, our early patent,
Method And Device For Extracting Information From A Database
, which was filed in September 1995 in the U.S. and multiple European territories, expired. We do not expect the
expiration of these patents to materially affect our business, operations or products. We rely on a combination of copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, confidentiality procedures and contractual commitments to protect our proprietary
information. For example, we license our software products pursuant to click-wrap or signed license agreements that impose certain restrictions on a licensees ability to utilize the software. We also seek to avoid disclosure of our
intellectual property, including by requiring those persons with access to our proprietary information to execute confidentiality agreements with us and by restricting access to our source code.
Despite our efforts, these measures can only provide limited protection. Unauthorized third parties may try to copy or reverse engineer
portions of our software products or may otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property. Any patents owned by us may be invalidated, circumvented or challenged. Any of our pending or future patent applications, whether or not being currently
challenged, may not be issued with the scope of the claims we seek, if at all. Legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights in other countries are uncertain and may afford little or
no effective protection for our services, software, methodology and other proprietary rights. Consequently, we may be unable to prevent our intellectual property rights from being exploited abroad, which could require costly efforts to protect them.
Policing the unauthorized use of our proprietary rights is expensive, difficult and, in some cases, impossible. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to
determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could harm our business. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be
able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property. If we cannot protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, we may not remain competitive.
Furthermore, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to developing and
protecting their technology or intellectual property rights than we do. In addition, our attempts to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights may be further limited as our employees may be recruited by our current or
future competitors and may take with them significant knowledge of our proprietary information. Consequently, others may develop services and methodologies that are similar or superior to our services and methodologies or may design around our
intellectual property.
Changes in laws or regulations relating to privacy or the protection or transfer of personal data, or any actual or
perceived failure by us or our third-party service providers to comply with such laws and regulations or applicable privacy policies, could materially adversely affect our business.
Aspects of our business, including our current or future cloud services offerings, involve processing, storing, and transmitting personal
data, which is subject to certain privacy policies, and certain federal, state, and foreign laws and regulations relating to privacy and data
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protection. The amount of customer and employee data that we store through our cloud services offerings, networks, and other systems, including personal data, is increasing. In recent years, the
collection and use of personal data by companies have come under increased regulatory and public scrutiny. For example, in the United States, protected health information is subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA). HIPAA has been supplemented by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act with the result of increased civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance. Under HIPAA, entities performing certain
functions and creating, receiving, maintaining, or transmitting protected health information provided by covered entities and other business associates are directly subject to HIPAA. Our access to protected health information through our cloud
services offerings triggers obligations to comply with certain privacy rules and data security requirements under HIPAA. Any systems failure or security breach that results in the release of, or unauthorized access to, personal data, or any failure
or perceived failure by us or our third-party service providers to comply with applicable privacy policies or any applicable laws or regulations relating to privacy or data protection, could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities
or others. Such proceedings could result in the imposition of sanctions, fines, penalties, liabilities, and/or governmental orders requiring that we change our data practices, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business,
operating results, and financial condition.
Various federal, state, and foreign legislative, regulatory, or other governmental bodies may
enact new or additional laws or regulations, or issue rulings that invalidate prior laws or regulations (such as the recent ruling by the European Court of Justice invalidating the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework), concerning privacy and data
protection that could materially adversely impact our business. Complying with these varying and changing requirements could cause us to incur substantial costs, require us to change our business practices, or limit our ability to provide certain
products in certain jurisdictions, any of which could materially adversely affect our business and operating results. Additionally, the legislation and regulation regarding mobile data collection continue to evolve and if laws or regulations
restricting or limiting the collection or use of mobile data are enacted, they may reduce demand for certain of our services or require changes to our business practices, which could materially adversely affect our business and operating results.
If we or our third-party service providers experience a security breach and unauthorized parties obtain access to our customers data, our
data, or our cloud services offerings, networks, or other systems, our offerings may be perceived as not being secure, our reputation may be harmed, demand for our offerings may be reduced, our operations may be disrupted, we may incur significant
legal liabilities, and our business could be materially adversely affected.
As part of our business, we process, store, and
transmit our customers information and data as well as our own, including in our cloud services offerings, networks, and other systems. There can be no assurance that any security measures that have been implemented will be effective against
all security threats. For example, security measures may be breached as a result of third-party action, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers, fraudulent inducement of employees or customers to disclose sensitive information such as
user names or passwords, and employee error or malfeasance. Such breach could result in someone obtaining unauthorized access to our customers data, our data (including our proprietary information or trade secrets), or our cloud services
offerings, networks, or other systems. Because there are many different security breach techniques and such techniques continue to evolve, we may be unable to anticipate attempted security breaches and implement adequate preventative measures. Third
parties may also conduct attacks designed to temporarily deny customers access to our services. Any security breach or successful denial of service attack could result in a loss of customer confidence in the security of our offerings and damage to
our brand, reducing the demand for our offerings and our revenue, disrupt our normal business operations, require us to spend material resources to correct the breach, expose us to legal liabilities including litigation and indemnity obligations,
and materially adversely affect our operating results. These risks will increase as we continue to grow the number and scale of our cloud-based offerings and process, store, and transmit increasingly large amounts of our customers information
and data, which may include proprietary or confidential data or personal or identifying information.
Our failure to adequately protect personal
information could have a material adverse effect on our business.
A wide variety of local, state, national, and international
laws, directives and regulations apply to the collection, use, retention, protection, disclosure, transfer, and other processing of personal data. These data protection and privacy-related laws and regulations continue to evolve and may result in
ever-increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions and increased costs of compliance. Our failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or to protect such data, could result in enforcement
action against us, including fines, imprisonment of company officials and public censure, claims for damages by end-customers and other affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill (both in relation to existing end-customers
and prospective end-customers), any of which could have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial performance, and business. Changing definitions of personal data and personal information, within the European Union, the United States,
and elsewhere, especially relating to classification of IP addresses, machine identification, location data, and other information, may limit or inhibit our ability to operate or expand our business, including limiting strategic partnerships that
may involve the sharing of data.
Economic uncertainties or downturns
could materially harm our business.
We are subject to risks arising from changes and uncertainty in domestic and global
economies. Our operations and performance depend significantly on worldwide economic conditions. Current or future economic downturns could harm our business and results of operations. Negative conditions in the general economies of the countries in
which we do business, such as actual or threatened military action, terrorist attacks, financial credit market fluctuations and changes in tax laws, could cause a decrease in corporate spending on BI software in general and negatively affect the
rate of growth of our business and our results of operations.
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The macroeconomic condition of some countries in which we operate has been hindered by
unemployment, budget deficits, high public debt, the risk of defaults on sovereign debt and potential or actual private bank failures. In recent years, policies undertaken by certain central banks, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European
Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England, have involved substantial monetary policy tactics, including quantitative easing, and the impact of these policies on macroeconomic trends and our customers is difficult to predict. In
addition, Brexit could adversely affect European or worldwide economic or market conditions and could contribute to instability and volatility in global financial markets. These conditions make it extremely difficult for our customers and us to
accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and they could cause our customers to slow spending on our products and services which would delay and lengthen sales cycles. Furthermore, during challenging economic times our customers may
face issues in gaining timely access to sufficient credit which could result in an impairment of their ability to make timely payments to us. If that were to occur, we may be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our operating
results would be harmed.
We maintain operating or other bank accounts at financial institutions in the U.S., Sweden and other regions. In
particular, a significant amount of our cash balances in the U.S. and Sweden are in excess of the insurance limits of the U.S. governments Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, and Swedish governments Swedish Deposit Insurance
Scheme, or Insättningsgarantin. The FDIC insures deposits in most banks and savings associations located in the U.S. and protects depositors against the loss of their deposits if an FDIC-insured bank or savings association fails, subject to
specified monetary ceilings. Similarly, the Swedish Deposit Insurance Scheme is a state-provided guarantee of deposits in accounts at Swedish banks, subject to specified monetary ceilings. We could incur substantial losses if the underlying
financial institutions in these or other regions fail or are otherwise unable to return our deposits.
We have a significant number of
customers in the consumer products and services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and financial services industries. A substantial downturn in these industries may cause organizations to react to worsening conditions by reducing their capital
expenditures in general or by specifically reducing their spending on IT. Customers in these industries may delay or cancel IT projects or seek to lower their costs by renegotiating vendor contracts. Also, customers with excess IT resources may
choose to develop in-house software solutions rather than obtain those solutions from us. Moreover, competitors may respond to market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers. In addition, the increased pace of
consolidation in certain industries may result in reduced overall spending on our products.
We cannot predict the timing, strength or
duration of any economic slowdown or recovery, generally or in the consumer products and services, manufacturing and financial services industries. During challenging and uncertain economic times and in tight credit markets, many customers delay or
reduce technology purchases. Contract negotiations may become more protracted or difficult if customers institute additional internal approvals for technology purchases or require more negotiation of contract terms and conditions. These economic
conditions, and uncertainty as to the general direction of the macroeconomic environment, are beyond our control and could result in reductions in sales of our products, longer sales cycles, difficulties in collection of accounts receivable or
delayed payments, slower adoption of new technologies, increased price competition and reductions in the rate at which our customers renew their maintenance agreements and procure consulting services.
Our business could be harmed as a result of the risks associated with our acquisitions.
As part of our business strategy, we may from time to time seek to acquire businesses or assets that provide us with additional intellectual
property, customer relationships and geographic coverage. We can provide no assurances that we will be able to find and identify desirable acquisition targets or that we will be successful in entering into a definitive agreement with any one target.
In addition, even if we reach a definitive agreement with a target, there is no assurance that we will complete any future acquisition.
Any acquisitions we undertake or have recently completed will likely be accompanied by business risks which may include, among other things:
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the effect of the acquisition on our financial and strategic position and reputation
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the failure of an acquisition to result in expected benefits, which may include benefits relating to enhanced revenues, technology, human resources, costs savings, operating efficiencies, goodwill and other synergies
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the difficulty, cost and management effort required to integrate the acquired businesses, including costs and delays in implementing common systems and procedures and costs and delays caused by communication
difficulties
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the assumption of certain known or unknown liabilities of the acquired business, including litigation-related liabilities
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the reduction of our cash available for operations and other uses, the increase in amortization expense related to identifiable assets acquired, potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of
debt
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a lack of experience in new markets, new business culture, products or technologies or an initial dependence on unfamiliar distribution partners
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the possibility that we will pay more than the value we derive from the acquisition
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the impairment of relationships with our customers, partners or suppliers or those of the acquired business
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the potential loss of key employees of the acquired business.
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These factors could harm our
business, results of operations or financial condition.
In addition to the risks commonly encountered in the acquisition of a business or
assets as described above, we may also experience risks relating to the challenges and costs of closing a transaction. The risks described above may be exacerbated as a result of managing multiple acquisitions at once.
Business disruptions, including interruptions, delays, or failures in service from our third-party data center hosting facilities and other third-party
services, could materially adversely affect our operating results or result in a material weakness in our internal controls that could adversely affect the market price of our stock.
A significant portion of our research and development activities or certain other critical business operations are concentrated at a single
facility in Sweden and a significant amount of our management operations are concentrated in a single facility in Radnor, Pennsylvania. In addition, we serve our customers, and manage certain critical internal processes, using third-party data
center hosting facilities located in the U.S. and Sweden and other third-party services, including Amazon Web Services and other cloud services. We are also a highly automated business and a disruption or failure of our systems, or the third-party
hosting facilities or other services that we use, could cause delays in completing sales and providing services. Such disruptions or failures could include a major earthquake, fire, cyber-attack, act of terrorism or other catastrophic event or a
decision by one of our third-party service providers to close facilities that we use without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems with the third-party services that we use, including a failure to meet service standards. Any such
disruptions or failures could (i) result that results in the destruction or disruption of any of our critical business operations, controls, or procedures or IT systems, (ii) severely affect our ability to conduct normal business
operations, (iii) result in a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, (iv) cause our customers to terminate their subscriptions, (v) result in our issuing credits or paying penalties or fines,
(vi) harm our reputation, (vii) adversely affect our attrition rates or our ability to attract new customers, or (viii) cause our offerings to be perceived as not being secure, any of which could materially adversely affect our future
operating results.
Future litigation could harm our results of operation and financial condition.
In addition to intellectual property litigation, from time to time, we may be subject to other litigation. We record a related liability when
we can make a reasonable estimate of the liability relating to pending litigation and determine that it is probable. As additional information becomes available, we assess the potential liability and revise estimates as appropriate. However, because
of uncertainties relating to litigation, the amount of our estimates could be wrong. In addition to the related cost and use of cash, pending or future litigation could cause the diversion of managements attention and resources.
We are incurring significant costs and demands upon management as a result of complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies, which
could harm our operating results.
As a public company, we are incurring significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we
did not incur as a private company. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as well as rules subsequently implemented by the SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA) and The NASDAQ Stock Exchange Global Select
Market (NASDAQ) imposes various requirements on public companies, including requirements with respect to corporate governance practices. Our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance
initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations have substantially increased our legal and financial compliance costs and made some activities more time-consuming and costly. We also expect these rules and regulations may make it more difficult
and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantial costs to maintain the same or similar coverage. These rules and regulations could
also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, our board committees or as executive officers.
If we do not adequately manage and evolve our financial reporting and managerial systems and processes, our ability to manage and grow our business may
be harmed. A failure or disruption in these services would materially and adversely affect our ability to manage our business effectively.
We have experienced rapid growth over the last several years. We rely heavily on information technology systems to help manage critical
functions, such as order processing, sales forecasts and employee data. Our ability to successfully implement our business plan and comply with regulations, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requires an effective planning and management process. We
expect that we will need to continue to improve existing, and implement new, operational and financial systems, procedures and controls to manage our business effectively in the future. In 2014, we implemented a new ERP system. If we experience a
breakdown in our procedures or controls, our ability to record and report financial and management information on a timely and accurate basis could be impaired. In addition, if one or more of our technology-related hardware or software providers
suffer an interruption in their business, or experience delays, disruptions or quality control problems in their operations, or we have to change or add additional systems and services, our ability to manage our business would suffer.
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Many of our key financial systems used for internal purposes are cloud based solutions provided by third
parties
Our ERP system along with certain other internal financial systems are cloud based solutions provided by third parties.
The use of cloud based systems provided by third parties exposes us to certain risks of those third parties. If a disruption of services by third party cloud financial system providers were to occur, it could have a material adverse effect on our
ability to record and report financial and management information on a timely and accurate basis.
If we fail to maintain proper and effective
internal control over financial reporting, our operating results and our ability to operate our business could be harmed.
The
Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we establish and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. Under the SECs current rules, we are required to perform system and
process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Our
independent registered public accounting firm is also required to report on our internal control over financial reporting. Our testing and our independent registered public accounting firms testing may reveal deficiencies in our internal
control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses and render our internal control over financial reporting ineffective. Due to the extent of our international operations, our financial reporting requires substantial
international activities, resources and reporting consolidation. We are also subject to complex tax laws, regulations, accounting principles and interpretations thereof. We have and expect to continue to incur substantial accounting and auditing
expense and to expend significant management time in complying with the requirements of Section 404. If we are not able to maintain compliance with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, or if we or our independent registered
public accounting firm identify deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to investigations or sanctions by the SEC,
FINRA, NASDAQ or other regulatory authorities. In addition, we could be required to expend significant management time and financial resources to correct any material weaknesses that may be identified or to respond to any regulatory investigations
or proceedings.
Our results of operations may be adversely affected by changes in or interpretations of accounting standards.
We prepare our unaudited consolidated financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States
(U.S. GAAP). These principles are subject to interpretation by the SEC and various bodies formed to interpret and create appropriate accounting standards. It is possible that future requirements, including the recently released new
guidance related to revenue recognition (ASU 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers: Topic 606), could change our current application of U.S. GAAP, resulting in a material adverse impact on our financial position or results of operations.
Our accounting policies that recently have been or may be affected by changes in the accounting rules are as follows:
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software revenue recognition
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accounting for income taxes
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accounting for business combinations and related goodwill
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accounting for stock-based awards issued to employees
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assessing fair value of financial and non-financial assets
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application, if any of International Financial Reporting Standards.
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We continuously review
our compliance with all applicable new and existing revenue recognition accounting pronouncements. In May 2014, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers: Topic 606 (ASU 2014-09), to
supersede nearly all existing revenue recognition guidance under U.S. GAAP. We are currently evaluating the impact of adopting ASU 2014-09 on our consolidated financial statements and have not yet selected a transition method, nor have we determined
the effect of the standard on our ongoing financial reporting. Depending upon the outcome of these ongoing reviews and the potential issuance of further accounting pronouncements, implementation guidelines and interpretations, we may be required to
modify our reported results, revenue recognition policies or business practices which could harm our results of operations.
We may have exposure to
greater than anticipated tax liabilities.
We are subject to complex taxes in the U.S. and a variety of foreign jurisdictions. All
of these jurisdictions have in the past and may in the future make changes to their corporate income tax rates and other income tax laws which could increase our future income tax provision.
Our future income tax obligations could be adversely affected by earnings that are lower than anticipated in jurisdictions where we have lower
statutory rates and by earnings that are higher than anticipated in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory rates, by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in the amount of unrecognized tax benefits or by
changes in tax laws (such as the Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) project initiated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)), regulations, accounting principles or interpretations thereof.
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Further changes in the tax laws of foreign jurisdictions could arise, whether as a result of BEPS
or otherwise. The OECD, which represents a coalition of member countries, has issued recommendations that, in some cases, would make substantial changes to numerous long-standing tax positions and principles. These contemplated changes, to the
extent adopted by OECD members and/or other countries, could increase tax uncertainty and may adversely affect our provision for income taxes. In addition, in the United States, various proposals for broad reform of the existing U.S. corporate tax
system are under evaluation by various legislative and administrative bodies, but it is not possible to accurately determine the overall impact of such proposals on our effective tax rate at this time.
Our determination of our tax liability is subject to review by applicable U.S. and foreign tax authorities. Any adverse outcome of such a
review could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition. The determination of our worldwide income tax provision and other tax liabilities requires significant judgment and, in the ordinary course of business, there are
many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is complex and uncertain. Moreover, as a multinational business, we have subsidiaries that engage in many intercompany transactions in a variety of tax jurisdictions where the
ultimate tax determination is complex and uncertain.
We also have contingent tax liabilities that, in managements judgment, are not
probable of assertion. If such unasserted contingent liabilities were to be asserted, or become probable of assertion, we may be required to record significant expenses and liabilities in the period in which these liabilities are asserted or become
probable of assertion.
We are also subject to non-income taxes, such as payroll, sales, use, value-added, net worth, property and goods
and services taxes in the U.S. and various foreign jurisdictions. We are regularly audited by tax authorities with respect to these non-income taxes and may have exposure to additional non-income tax liabilities which could have an adverse effect on
our results of operations and financial condition. In addition, our future effective tax rates could be favorably or unfavorably affected by changes in tax rates, changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets or liabilities, or changes in tax
laws or their interpretation. Such changes could have an adverse impact on our financial results.
As a result of these and other factors,
the ultimate amount of tax obligations owed may differ from the amounts recorded in our financial statements and any such difference may harm our financial results in future periods in which we change our estimates of our tax obligations or in which
the ultimate tax outcome is determined.
We may be subject to increased income taxes, and other restrictions and limitations, if we were to decide
to repatriate any of our foreign cash balances to the U.S.
As of June 30, 2016, we held approximately $186.3 million, or
approximately 49%, of our cash and cash equivalents outside of the U.S. We use our foreign held cash by reinvesting it in our foreign operations. Our current intention is to continue to reinvest our foreign earnings in our foreign operations. Our
current plans do not anticipate a need to repatriate cash to fund our domestic operations. In the event cash from foreign operations is needed to fund operations in the U.S. or our foreign cash balance continues to grow such that we are unable to
reinvest such cash outside of the U.S., it may become increasingly likely that we would repatriate some of our foreign cash balances to the U.S. In such event, we would be subject to additional income taxes in the U.S.
Additionally, if we were to repatriate foreign held cash to the U.S., we would use a portion of our domestic net operating loss carryforward
which could result in us being subject to cash income taxes on the earnings of our domestic business sooner than would otherwise have been the case.
Various corporate tax reform bills and other proposals at various times are under consideration by Congress. It is not clear whether, or to
what extent, these proposals may be enacted. Although the overall impact that any proposals may have on our future effective tax rate is unclear at this time, significant changes to the U.S. taxation of our international income could have a material
adverse effect on our results of operations.
Our business could be negatively affected as a result of activist stockholders.
We could be negatively affected as a result of stockholder activism, which could cause us to incur significant
expense, hinder execution of our business strategy and impact the trading value of our securities. Stockholder activism, which could take many forms or arise in a variety of situations, has been increasing in publicly traded companies in recent
years. For example, a stockholder, Elliott Associates, L.P. and affiliates, filed a Schedule 13D in March 2016 stating they own approximately 10% of our common stock and expressing an intent to engage in substantive discussions with our management,
our Board of Directors and others relating to strategic and operational opportunities for us that such activist stockholder believes would meaningfully increase value to stockholders. Responding to actions by an activist stockholder can be costly
and time-consuming, disrupt our operations and divert the attention of management and our employees. Additionally, perceived uncertainties as to our future direction as a result of stockholder activism or changes to the composition of our board
of directors may lead to the perception of a change in the direction of our business or other instability, which may be exploited by our competitors, cause concern to our current or potential customers and make it more difficult to attract and
retain qualified personnel. If customers choose to delay, defer or reduce transactions with us or do business with our competitors instead of us because of any such issues, then our business, operating results and financial condition would be
adversely affected. Also, we may be required to incur significant legal fees and other expenses related to activist stockholder matters. Any of these impacts could materially and adversely affect our operating results or result in changes
in our management team or our Board of Directors. In addition, our stock price may experience periods of increased volatility as a result of stockholder activism.
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If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports or publish unfavorable research or
reports about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock may be
influenced by the research and reports that securities or industry analysts may publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. If any of the analysts who may cover us adversely change their recommendation regarding our stock or
products, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, our stock price would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, interest in
our stock could decrease, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
The price of our common stock may be volatile and
fluctuate substantially.
The market price of our common stock could be highly volatile and may fluctuate substantially due to the
following factors (in addition to the other risk factors described in this section):
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quarterly variations in our results of operations or those of our competitors
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announcements by us or our competitors of acquisitions, new products, significant contracts or commercial relationships
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our ability to respond to changing industry standards, technological developments or customer requirements on a timely basis
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commencement of, or our involvement in, litigation
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any major change in our board of directors or management
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financial guidance or business updates we may provide
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foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations
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recommendations by securities analysts or changes in earnings estimates
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announcements about our earnings that are not in line with analyst expectations or guidance we may provide
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changes in our licensing or go to business models
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announcements by our competitors of their earnings that are not in line with analyst expectations
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the volume of shares of our common stock available for public sale
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sales of stock by us or by our stockholders
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short sales, hedging and other derivative transactions involving shares of our common stock
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adoption of new accounting standards or tax laws or regulations
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general economic conditions in the U.S. and abroad and slow or negative growth of related markets
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general political conditions in the U.S. and abroad including terrorist attacks, war or threat of terrorist attacks or war.
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In addition, the stock market in general, NASDAQ and the market for technology companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and
volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of the particular companies affected. These broad market and industry factors may materially harm the market price irrespective of our operating
performance. As a result of these factors, an investor might be unable to resell their shares at or above the price paid. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market or the market price of a companys
securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against the affected company. This type of litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our managements attention and
resources.
Future sales of our common stock in the public market, including sales by our stockholders with significant holdings, may depress our
stock price.
The market price of our common stock could drop due to sales of a large number of shares or the perception that such
sales could occur, including sales or perceived sales by our directors, officers or large stockholders. These sales could also make it more difficult or impossible for us to sell equity securities in the future at a time and price that we deem
appropriate to raise funds through future offerings of equity securities.
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Our management has broad discretion over the use of our cash reserves, if any, and might not apply this
cash in ways that increase the value of an investment.
Our management has broad discretion to use our cash reserves, if any, and
you will be relying on the judgment of our management regarding the application of this cash. They might not apply our cash in ways that increase the value of an investment. We expect to use our cash reserves for general corporate purposes,
including working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions and further development of our products, services and solutions. We have not allocated this cash for any specific purposes. Our management might not be able to yield any return on the
investment and use of this cash.
We currently do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and consequently, your only opportunity to
achieve a return on investment is if the price of our common stock appreciates and you sell your shares at a price above your cost.
We currently do not intend to declare or pay dividends on shares of our common stock in the foreseeable future. Consequently, your only
opportunity to achieve a return on your investment in our company will be if the market price of our common stock appreciates and you sell your shares at a price above your cost. There is no guarantee that the price of our common stock will ever
exceed the price that you pay. Investors seeking cash dividends should not purchase our common stock.
Anti-takeover provisions in our certificate
of incorporation and bylaws and in Delaware law could prevent or delay a change in control of our company.
We are a Delaware
corporation, and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three
years after the person becomes an interested stockholder even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may discourage, delay or
prevent a change in our management or control over us that stockholders may consider favorable. Our restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws:
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authorize the issuance of blank check preferred stock that could be issued by our board of directors to thwart a takeover attempt
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do not provide for cumulative voting in the election of directors which would allow holders of less than a majority of the stock to elect some directors
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establish a classified board of directors, as a result of which the successors to the directors whose terms have expired will be elected to serve from the time of election and qualification until the third annual
meeting following their election
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require that directors only be removed from office for cause
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provide that vacancies on the board of directors, including newly-created directorships, may be filled only by a majority vote of directors then in office
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limit who may call special meetings of stockholders
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prohibit stockholder action by written consent, requiring all actions to be taken at a meeting of the stockholders
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establish advance notice requirements for nominating candidates for election to the board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at stockholder meetings.
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