Item 1. Business

Overview

Fortinet is a global leader in cybersecurity and networking solutions for organizations, including enterprises, communication service providers, security service providers, government organizations and small businesses.

The focus areas of our business consist of:

• Convergence / Security-Driven Networking**—Our Security-Driven Networking solutions enable the convergence of networking and security across all edges to provide next-generation firewall (“NGFW”), software-defined wide area network (“SD-WAN”), LAN Edge (Wi-Fi and switch) and secure access service edge (“SASE”). Traditional networking lacks awareness of content, applications, users, devices, location and more. A security-driven networking approach converges networking and security into a single, accelerated solution. A specially designed operating system and security processors work in concert to greatly improve network performance and security posture while decreasing footprint and power consumption. We derive a majority of product sales from our FortiGate network security appliances. FortiGate network security appliances include a broad set of built-in security and networking features and functionalities, including firewall, next-generation firewall, secure web gateway, secure sockets layer (“SSL”) inspection, software-defined wide area network (“SD-WAN”), intrusion prevention system (“IPS”), sandboxing, data leak prevention, virtual private network (“VPN”), switch and wireless controller and wide area network (“WAN”) edge. Our network security appliances are managed by our FortiOS network operating system, which provides the foundation for FortiGate security functions. We enhance the performance of our network security appliances from branch to data center by designing and implementing security processing units (“SPUs”) technology within our appliances, enabling us to add security and network functionality with minimal impact to network throughput performance. Along with our secure Wi-Fi access points and switches, Fortinet helps organizations secure their networks across campuses, branches and work from anywhere (“WFA”) deployments.

• Zero Trust Access**—Our Zero Trust Access solutions enable customers to know and control who and what is on their network, in addition to providing security for WFA. Zero Trust Access solutions include FortiNAC, FortiAuthenticator, FortiClient/EDR and FortiToken. Our network access control solutions provide visibility, control and automated event responses in order to secure internet of things (“IoT”) and operational technology (“OT”) devices.

• Adaptive Cloud Security**—We help customers connect securely to and across their individual, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud and virtualized data center environments by offering security through our virtual firewall and other software products and through integrated capabilities with major cloud platforms. Our public and private cloud security solutions, including virtual appliances and hosted solutions, extend the core capabilities of the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform in and across cloud environments, delivering security that follows their applications and data. Our Secure SD-WAN for multi-cloud solution automates deployment of an overlay network across different cloud networks and offers visibility, control and centralized management that integrates functionality across multiple cloud environments. Our cloud security portfolio also includes securing applications, including email and web. Fortinet cloud security offerings are available for deployment in major public and private cloud environments, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud and VMWare Cloud. We also offer managed IPS and web application firewall (“WAF”) rules delivered by FortiGuard Labs as an overlay service to native security offerings offered by Amazon Web Services.

• AI-Driven Security Operations**—We develop and provide a range of products and services that enable the security operations center (“SOC”) teams to identify, investigate and remediate potential incidents in which cybercriminals bypass prevention-oriented controls. Given the breadth of the attack surface to monitor, as well as the volume and sophistication of cyber threats, artificial intelligence (“AI”) is a key part of these offerings, which include: FortiGuard and other security subscription services, endpoint security with endpoint detection and response (“EDR”), a range of breach-protection technologies plus our security information and event management (“SIEM”) and security orchestration, automation and response (“SOAR”), all of which can be applied across the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform. These solutions automatically deliver security intelligence and insights that help organizations to protect against and respond to threats through integration with Fortinet and third-party solutions.

• Security as a Service**—Our customers purchase our FortiGuard security subscription services as an add-on to products and solutions across the Fortinet Security Fabric to receive threat intelligence and protection updates. FortiGuard services are designed to provide protection for users and applications, including offerings for IPS, web, video and domain name system (“DNS”) filtering, audio/visual (“AV”) and cloud sandbox along with IoT and OT Security. The

FortiGuard security services are provided from our FortiGuard Labs and cloud-delivered to provide real-time unified protection across network endpoint and cloud.

• Support and Professional Services**—Fortinet offers technical support, FortiOS updates, and extended product warranty through our FortiCare support services. In addition to our technical support services, we offer a range of advanced services, including premium support, professional services and expedited warranty replacement. Our professional service offerings include resident engineers and professional service consultants for implementations or trainings.

During our year ended December 31, 2021, we generated total revenue of $3.34 billion and net income of $606.8 million. See Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information on our consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2021 and 2020 and our consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, equity, and cash flows for each of the three years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019.

We were incorporated in Delaware in November 2000. Our principal executive office is located at 899 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, California 94086 and our telephone number at that location is (408) 235-7700.

Consolidation of Technology and Architecture

Cybersecurity has traditionally been deployed one solution at a time and not designed to work well with other deployed solutions while also increasing management complexity. A Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform approach consolidates point products into a platform, allowing for much tighter integration, increased automation and a more rapid, coordinated, and effective response to threats across the network. The Fortinet Security Fabric has an open architecture designed to integrate Fortinet solutions and third-party solutions.

Our product offerings consist of our FortiGate network security products and our non-FortiGate products, which are offered in a broad range of form factors spanning physical appliances, virtual appliances, software and cloud-hosted services. This enables Fortinet to protect customers across all edges and deployment scenarios including users, devices, networks, cloud, and virtual data center. Our cloud- and hosted- products and services include sandboxing, endpoint detection and response (“EDR”), email security, web application and API security, and cloud networking security as well as Fortinet Security Fabric management and analytics. Additionally, we offer cloud-delivered and hosted-security services. Our FortiGuard security services are enabled by FortiGuard Labs, which provides threat research and artificial intelligence capabilities from a cloud network to deliver protection through FortiGate appliance and virtual machine as well as Fortinet Security Fabric products that are registered by the end-customer. All these are combined to form the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform, which is an approach to security that consolidates discrete security solutions together into an integrated offering. This integrated approach to security extends across both Fortinet developed solutions and a broad ecosystem of technology partner solutions and technologies.

SPU

Our proprietary SPUs are application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”) that include (i) the content processor (“SPU CP”), (ii) the network processor (“SPU NP”) and (iii) the system-on-a-chip (“SPU SoC”). Our SPUs are embedded in our physical FortiGate appliances and are designed to enhance the security processing capabilities of our operating system by accelerating computationally intensive tasks such as firewall policy enforcement, SD-WAN, network address translation, IPS, threat detection and encryption while also converging security capabilities with networking functionality. We also provide virtualized security processing units (“vSPUs”) across our FortiGate virtual appliances.

The use of SPUs allows our appliances to consolidate security functionality and converge security with a minimal impact to network throughput performance, which we believe delivers a lower total cost of ownership (“TCO”) to our customers. As the security needs and technologies of our end-customers increase, we believe our TCO-driven SPU approach give our products a competitive advantage against other architectural approaches.

Entry-level FortiGate products often use the SPU SoC to provide the necessary acceleration at this level. Mid-range FortiGate products use a central processing unit (“CPU”) and include the SPU NP and SPU CP hardware acceleration. The high-end FortiGate products use multiple CPUs, SPU CPs and SPU NPs.

FortiOS

FortiOS, its associated security and networking functions and products that run or are integrated with FortiOS are combined to form the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform. This approach to security ties discrete security solutions together into an integrated offering.

Our proprietary FortiOS operating system provides the foundation for the operation of FortiGate network security appliances, whether physical, virtual, private- or public-cloud based. We make regular enhancements and other updates to FortiOS available through our FortiCare support services.

The convergence of security and networking capabilities provided by the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform are powered and controlled through FortiOS. FortiOS provides (i) multiple layers of security, including a hardened kernel layer providing protection for the FortiGate system, (ii) a network security layer, providing security for end-customers’ network infrastructures and (iii) application content protection, providing security for end-customers’ workstations and applications. FortiOS directs the operations of processors and SPUs and provides system management functions such as command line, graphical user interfaces, multiple network and security topology views.

FortiOS also enables advanced, integrated routing and switching, allowing end-customers to deploy FortiGate devices within a wide variety of networks, as well as providing a direct replacement solution option for legacy switching and routing equipment. FortiOS implements a suite of commonly used standards-based routing protocols as well as network address translation technologies, allowing the FortiGate appliance to integrate and operate in a wide variety of network environments. Additional features include virtual domain capabilities, which can provide support for multiple customers on a single device or FortiOS instance in support of service provider and managed security service provider (“MSSP”) deployments. FortiOS also provides capabilities for the logging of traffic for forensic analysis purposes. FortiOS is designed to help control network traffic in order to optimize performance by including functionality such as packet classification, queue disciplines, policy enforcement, congestion management, WAN optimization and caching.

Products

Our core product offerings consist of our FortiGate firewall product family and our non-FortiGate products which may be purchased to integrate and expand security architectures. Our non-FortiGate products include the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform, email security, cloud security, endpoint protection and other products. Our FortiGate hardware and software licenses are sold with a set of FortiGate broad security services. These security services are enabled by FortiGuard Labs, which provides threat research and artificial intelligence capabilities from a global cloud network to deliver protection services.

FortiGate

FortiGate converges a broad set of security and networking functions, including firewall, intrusion prevention, anti-malware, VPN, application control, web filtering, anti-spam and WAN acceleration. FortiGate is available as a hardware appliance or as a virtual appliance. All FortiGate appliances run on FortiOS. FortiGate platforms can be centrally managed through both embedded web-based and command line interfaces, as well as through FortiManager, which provides a central management architecture for FortiGate appliances and the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform.

With over 35 models in the FortiGate product line, FortiGate is designed to address security requirements for small- to medium-sized businesses, large enterprises and government organizations worldwide.

Most FortiGate hardware appliances include one of our SPUs to accelerate content and network security features implemented within FortiOS. The significant differences between each model are the performance and scalability targets each model is designed to meet, while the security features and associated services offered are common throughout all models. The FortiGate-20 through -90 series models are designed for perimeter protection for small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises with distributed offices. The FortiGate-100 through -900 series models are designed for perimeter deployment in medium-sized to large enterprise networks. The FortiGate-1000 through -7000 series models deliver high performance and scalable network security functionality for perimeter, data center and hyper scale data centers, and core deployment in large enterprises. In addition to networking security features, all FortiGate models and form factors also deliver secure SD-WAN capabilities. Fortinet also offers FortiGate Rugged models for OT applications where ruggedized appliances are needed.

We also incorporate additional technologies within FortiGate appliances that differentiate our solutions, including data leak protection, traffic optimization, SSL inspection, threat vulnerability management and wireless controller technology. In addition to these in-built features, we offer a full range of wireless access points and controllers, complementing FortiGate appliances with the flexibility of wireless local area network access.

Fortinet Security Fabric Cybersecurity Mesh Platform and Non-FortiGate Products

As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform, we offer products that provide network security, endpoint security, cloud security, web-based application security, identity and access management, sandbox protection and

email security. The integration of devices using open standards, common operating systems, and unified management platforms enables the sharing and correlation of real-time threat intelligence. The following Fortinet products can operate as part of the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform:

• FortiAnalyzer**—Our FortiAnalyzer family of products provides centralized network logging, analyzing and reporting solutions that securely aggregate content and log data from our FortiGate devices, other Fortinet products and third-party devices to enable network logging, analysis and reporting.

*•*FortiAP—Our FortiAP product family provides secure wireless networking solutions. FortiAPs allow a variety of management options including from the cloud and directly from our FortiGate firewall product. FortiAPs create a scalable and secure access layer for connecting wireless devices such as computers, laptops, cell phones and tablets, as well as IoT devices.

• FortiClient—Our FortiClient provides advanced endpoint protection with pattern-based anti-malware, behavior-based exploit protection, web-filtering and an application firewall. FortiClient integrates with FortiSandbox to detect zero-day threats and custom malware. FortiClient also provides secure remote access with built-in VPN, single-sign-on and two-factor authentication for added security.

• FortiEDR/XDR—Our FortiEDR/XDR is an endpoint protection solution that provides both machine-learning anti-malware protection and remediation. FortiEDR/XDR supports broad OS coverage workstations, servers, and virtual machines, including legacy operating and embedded systems.

• FortiGate-VM**— FortiGate-VM extends the Fortinet Security Fabric through the cloud on-ramp into the cloud, enabling customers to achieve security-driven networking within the cloud and between clouds and hybrid clouds. FortiGate-VM is powered by Fortinet vSPUs to deliver accelerated security and performance with minimal impact to performance. Our cloud networking solution enables better, more secure application experiences for users and branch offices by providing for encrypted data transports, granular segmentation and application-layer protection against advanced threats, and seamless overlay network with uniform policies across multi-clouds. FortiGate-VM is available for all major cloud providers, hypervisors and software-defined network (“SDN”) platforms.

• FortiMail**—Our FortiMail product family provides secure email gateway solutions. FortiMail utilizes the technologies and security services from FortiGuard Labs to deliver protection against threats that use email as an attack vector. FortiMail also integrates data protection capabilities to avoid data loss.

• FortiManager**—Our FortiManager family of products provides a central and scalable management solution for our FortiGate products, including software updates, configuration, policy settings and security updates. FortiManager facilitates the coordination of policy-based provisioning, device configuration and operating system revision management, as well as network security monitoring and device control.

• FortiSandbox**—Our FortiSandbox technology delivers proactive detection and mitigation with the ability to generate a directly actionable protection capability. Available in both hardware and cloud-based form, the FortiSandbox subjects suspicious code to a set of multi-layer protection techniques, culminating in execution within an operating system, allowing real-time behavioral analysis to be performed in a secure environment. When malicious code is identified, a signature can be generated locally for distribution across the Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform.

*•*FortiSwitch—Our FortiSwitch product family provides secure switching solutions that can be deployed in traditional network switching designs with Layer 2 or Layer 3 access control features. FortiSwitch creates a scalable and secure access layer for customers to connect their end devices, such as computers and laptops, as well as to expand the field of IoT devices.

*•*FortiToken—Our FortiToken allows organizations to implement two-factor authentication to better safeguard systems, assets and data. With two-factor authentication, a password is used along with a security token and authentication server to provide seamless yet highly secured access between users and applications. Authorized employees can access company resources safely using a variety of devices, ranging from laptops to mobile phones.

• FortiWeb—Our FortiWeb product family provides web application firewall solutions, including internet protocol (“IP”) reputation and anti-botnet security, distributed denial-of-service protection, protocol validation, application attack signatures and deep learning AI to protect applications against a wide range of threats.

The products listed above are available in multiple form factors, such as hardware, virtual machine, cloud or software-as-a-service (“SaaS”), except for FortiSwitch, FortiAP and FortiExtender, which are available as hardware appliances only and FortiGate-VM and FortiEDR/XDR which are available as virtual solutions only.

In the third quarter of 2021, we closed an acquisition of 75% of equity interests in Alaxala Networks Corporation (“Alaxala”), a privately held network hardware equipment company in Japan, to help address the increasing need for secure switches integrated with FortiGate firewalls and Security Fabric functionality, and, over time, to innovate and rebrand certain of Alaxala’s switches to offer a broader suite of secure switches globally. In the first quarter of 2021, we acquired ShieldX Networks Inc. (“ShieldX”), a provider of a security platform focusing on protecting multi-cloud data centers from the risk of lateral movement that can lead to attacks such as ransomware, data loss and service disruption.

Services

FortiGuard Security Subscription Services

Security requirements are dynamic due to the constantly changing nature of threats. Our FortiGuard security subscription services are designed to deliver threat detection and prevention capabilities to end-customers worldwide as threats evolve. Our FortiGuard Labs global threat research team identifies emerging threats, collects threat samples, and replicates, reviews, characterizes and collates attack data through the use of AI, automation and original research. Based on this research, we develop updates for virus signatures, attack definitions, scanning engines and other security solution components to distribute to end-customers. FortiGuard functionality varies depending on the FortiGate and non-FortiGate products, and will typically include one or more of the following functions: application control, antivirus, intrusion prevention, web filtering, anti-spam, VPN functions, email image analysis, vulnerability management, database functions, web functions, advanced threat protection, sandboxing and domain and IP reputation services.

End-customers purchase FortiGuard security subscription services in advance, typically with terms of one to five years. We provide FortiGuard security subscription services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

FortiCare Technical Support Services

Our FortiCare support services portfolio includes technical support, FortiOS updates and extended product warranty. For our standard technical support, our channel partners may provide first-level support to the end-customer. We also provide first-level support to our end-customers, as well as second- and third-level support as appropriate. We also provide knowledge management tools and customer self-help portals to help augment our support capabilities in an efficient and scalable manner. We deliver technical support to partners and end-customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through regional technical support centers. In addition to our technical support services, we offer a range of advanced services, including premium support, professional services and expedited warranty replacement.

Service Bundles

We also sell FortiGuard and FortiCare services as bundles, consolidating security services into packages that are appropriate for different use cases or end-customers.

• Advanced Threat Protection**—Our Advanced Threat Protection bundle includes antivirus, data sanitation sandbox, intrusion prevention, virus outbreak protection, mobile security, application control, IP reputation and anti-botnet security, along with FortiCare support services.

• Unified Threat Protection**—Our Unified Threat Protection bundle includes the Advanced Threat Protection security services noted above, as well as intrusion prevention, virus outbreak protection, web filtering and FortiCare support services.

• Enterprise Protection**—Our Enterprise Protection bundle includes the Unified Threat Protection services noted above, as well as industrial control systems, security rating, along with enhanced FortiCare support services.

• Small Medium Business –** Our Small Medium Business bundle includes the Unified Threat Protection services noted above, as well as FortiGate Cloud which provides cloud-based management, reporting, and analytics for FortiGates along with enhanced FortiCare support services.

Professional Services

We offer professional services to end-customers including technical account managers (“TAMs”), resident engineers (“REs”) and professional service consultants, security architects for implementations and remote, cloud-based incident response (“IR”).

TAMs and REs are dedicated support engineers available to help identify and eliminate issues before problems arise. Each TAM and RE acts as a single point of contact and customer advocate within Fortinet, offering a deep understanding of our customers’ businesses and security requirements.

Our professional services consultants and security architects help to formulate customer-specific security strategies, develop roadmaps for securing digital initiatives and design product deployments. They work closely with end-customers to implement our products according to design, utilizing network analysis tools, traffic simulation software and scripts.

Fortinet also offers remote, cloud-based IR and monitoring services to help customers identify, remediate and understand compromises. This service leverages our FortiEDR capabilities either as part of a premium FortiEDR subscription for continuous monitoring or alternatively, can be deployed to help deliver IR services on a per incident basis.

Training Services

We offer training services to our end-customers and channel partners through our training team and authorized training partners. We have also implemented a training certification program, Network Security Expert, to help ensure an understanding of our products and services. Since 2020, Fortinet also offers a number of free online training courses to help address prevalent industry-wide cybersecurity skills gaps and shortages.

Customers

We typically sell our security solutions to distributors that sell to networking security focused resellers and to service providers and managed security service providers (“MSSPs”), who, in turn, sell products and/or services to end-customers. At times, we also sell directly to large service providers and major systems integrators who may sell to our end-customers or use our products and services to provide hosted solutions to other enterprises. Our end-customers are located in over 100 countries and include small, medium and large enterprises and government organizations across a wide range of industries, including telecommunications, government, financial services, retail, technology, education, manufacturing and healthcare. An end-customer deployment may involve as few as one or as many as thousands of appliances as well as other Fortinet Security Fabric cybersecurity mesh platform products. Customers may also access our products via the cloud through certain cloud providers such as Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. Often, our customers also purchase our FortiGuard security subscription services and FortiCare technical support services.

During 2021, Exclusive Networks Group (“Exclusive”) and Ingram Micro Inc. (“Ingram Micro”) accounted for 31% and 12% of total revenue, respectively. During 2020, Exclusive and Ingram Micro accounted for 30% and 10% of total revenue, respectively. During 2019, Exclusive and Ingram Micro accounted for 31% and 11% of total revenue, respectively.

Sales and Marketing

We primarily sell our products and services through a two-tier distribution model. We sell to distributors that sell to resellers and to service providers and MSSPs, who, in turn, sell products and/or services to end-customers. In certain cases, we sell directly to large service providers and major systems integrators. We work with many technology distributors, including Arrow Electronics, Inc., Exclusive, Ingram Micro and TD Synnex (formerly Tech Data Corporation and Synnex Corporation, separately).

We support our channel partners with a dedicated team of experienced channel account managers, sales professionals and sales engineers who provide business planning, joint marketing strategy, pre-sales and operational sales support. Additionally, our sales teams help drive and support large enterprise and service provider sales through a direct touch model. Our sales professionals and engineers typically work closely with our channel partners and directly engage with large end-customers to address their unique security and deployment requirements. To support our broadly dispersed global channel and end-customer base, we have sales professionals in over 100 countries around the world.

Our marketing strategy is focused on building our brand, driving thought leadership with emphasis on the criticality of cybersecurity platform adoption and the convergence of security and networking as well as driving end-customer demand for our security solutions. We use a combination of internal marketing professionals and a network of regional and global channel partners. Our internal marketing organization is responsible for messaging, branding, demand generation, product marketing, channel marketing, partner incentives and promotions, event marketing, digital marketing, communications, analyst relations, public relations and sales enablement. We focus our resources on campaigns, programs and activities that can be leveraged by partners worldwide to extend our marketing reach, such as sales tools and collateral, product awards and technical certifications, media engagement, training, regional seminars and conferences, webinars and various other demand-generation activities.

In 2021, we continued to invest in sales and marketing resources, particularly in the enterprise market where we believe there is an opportunity to expand our business. We intend to continue to make investments in sales and marketing resources, which are critical to support our growth.

Manufacturing and Suppliers

We outsource the manufacturing of our security appliance products to a variety of contract manufacturers and original design manufacturers. Our current manufacturing partners include ADLINK Technology, Inc. (“ADLINK”), IBASE Technology, Inc. (“IBASE”), Micro-Star International Co. (“Micro-Star”), Senao Networks, Inc. (“Senao”), Wistron Corporation (“Wistron”) and a number of other manufacturers. Approximately 83% of our hardware is manufactured in Taiwan. We submit purchase orders to our contract manufacturers that describe the type and quantities of our products to be manufactured, the delivery date and other delivery terms. Once our products are manufactured, they are sent to either our warehouse in California or to our logistics partner in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, where accessory packaging and quality-control testing are performed. We believe that outsourcing our manufacturing and a substantial portion of our logistics enables us to focus resources on our core competencies. Our proprietary SPUs, which are key to the performance of our appliances, are built by contract manufacturers including Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (“Toshiba”) and Renesas Electronics America, Inc. (“Renesas”). These contract manufacturers use foundries in Taiwan and Japan operated by either Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (“TSMC”) or by the contract manufacturer itself.

The components included in our products are sourced from various suppliers by us or, more frequently, by our contract manufacturers. Some of the components important to our business, including certain CPUs from Intel Corporation (“Intel”), network chips from Broadcom Inc. (“Broadcom”), Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (“Marvell”) and Intel, and memory devices from Intel, ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. (“ADATA”), OCZ Technology Group, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”), and Western Digital Technologies, Inc. (“Western Digital”), are available from limited or sole sources of supply.

We have no long-term contracts related to the manufacturing of our ASICs or other components that guarantee any capacity or pricing terms.

Research and Development

We focus our research and development efforts on developing new hardware and software products and services, and adding new features to existing products and services. Our development strategy is to identify features, products and systems for both software and hardware that are, or are expected to be, important to our end-customers. Our success in designing, developing, manufacturing and selling new or enhanced products will depend on a variety of factors, including identification of market demand for new products or new features, components selection, timely implementation of product design and development, product performance, quality, ease of use, costs of development, bill of materials, effective manufacturing and assembly processes and sales and marketing.

Intellectual Property

We rely primarily on patent, trademark, copyright and trade secrets laws, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our technology. We periodically have discussions with third parties regarding licensing Fortinet’s intellectual property (“IP”) and have sometimes taken legal action against competitors to protect our IP, and as a result third parties have paid us fees in return for licenses or covenants-not-to-sue related to Fortinet IP. As of December 31, 2021, we had 1,255 U.S. and foreign-issued patents and 254 pending U.S. and foreign patent applications. We also license software from third parties for inclusion in our products, including open source software and other software.

Despite our efforts to protect our rights in our technology, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our products or obtain and use information and technology that we regard as proprietary. We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, vendors and customers, and generally limit access to and distribution of our

proprietary information. However, we cannot provide assurance that the steps we take will prevent misappropriation of our technology. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights to as great an extent as the laws of the United States, and many foreign countries do not enforce these laws as diligently as government agencies and private parties in the United States.

Our industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents and frequent claims and related litigation regarding patent and other IP rights. Third parties have asserted, are currently asserting and may in the future assert patent, copyright, trademark or other IP rights against us, our channel partners or our end-customers. Successful claims of infringement by a third-party could prevent us from distributing certain products or performing certain services or require us to pay substantial damages (including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed patents or copyrights), royalties or other fees. Even if third parties offer a license to their technology, the terms of any offered license may not be acceptable and the failure to obtain a license or the costs associated with any license could cause our business, operating results or financial condition to be materially and adversely affected. In certain instances, we indemnify our end-customers, distributors and resellers against claims that our products infringe the IP of third parties.

Government Regulation

We are subject to regulation by various federal, state, regional, local and foreign governmental agencies, including agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing employment and labor laws, workplace safety, product safety, product labeling, environmental laws, consumer protection laws, anti-bribery laws, data privacy laws, import and export controls, federal securities laws and tax laws and regulations. Many of the laws and regulations that are or may be applicable to our business are changing or being tested in courts and could be interpreted in ways that could adversely impact our business. In addition, the application and interpretation of these laws and regulations often are uncertain, particularly in the industry in which we operate. We believe we are in compliance with current laws and regulations and do not expect continued compliance to have a material impact on our capital expenditures, earnings, or competitive position. We continue to monitor existing and pending laws and regulations and while the impact of regulatory changes cannot be predicted with certainty, we do not currently expect compliance to have a material adverse effect.

Seasonality

For information regarding seasonality in our sales, see the section entitled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Seasonality, Cyclicality and Quarterly Revenue Trends” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Competition

The markets for our products are extremely competitive and are characterized by rapid technological change. The principal competitive factors in our markets include the following:

• product security performance, throughput, features, effectiveness, interoperability and reliability;

• addition and integration of new networking and security features and technological expertise;

• compliance with industry standards and certifications;

• price of products and services and total cost of ownership;

• brand recognition;

• customer service and support across varied and complex customer segments and use cases;

• sales and distribution capabilities;

• size and financial stability;

• breadth of product line;

• form factor of the solution; and

• other competitive differentiators.

Among others, our competitors include Barracuda Networks, Inc. (“Barracuda”), Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (“Check Point”), Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”), CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (“CrowdStrike”), F5 Networks, Inc. (“F5 Networks”), Forcepoint LLC (“Forcepoint”), Imperva, Inc. (“Imperva”), Juniper Networks, Inc. (“Juniper”), Mandiant, Inc. (“Mandiant”), McAfee, LLC (“McAfee”), Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (“Palo Alto Networks”), Proofpoint, Inc. (“Proofpoint”), SonicWALL, Inc. (“SonicWALL”), Sophos Group Plc (“Sophos”), Trend Micro Incorporated (“Trend Micro”) and Zscaler, Inc. (“Zscaler”).

We believe we compete favorably based on our products’ security performance, throughput, reliability, breadth and ability to work together, our ability to add and integrate new networking and security features and our technological expertise. Several competitors are significantly larger, have greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution, customer support and other resources, are more established than we are, and have significantly better brand recognition. Some of these larger competitors have substantially broader product offerings and leverage their relationships based on other products or incorporate functionality into existing products in a manner that discourages users from purchasing our products. Based in part on these competitive pressures, we may lower prices or attempt to add incremental features and functionalities to our products.

Conditions in our markets could change rapidly and significantly as a result of technological advancements, market consolidation, supply chain constraints, price list or discount changes or inflation. The development and market acceptance of alternative technologies could decrease the demand for our products or render them obsolete. Our competitors may introduce products that are less costly, provide superior performance, are better marketed, or achieve greater market acceptance than our products. Additionally, our larger competitors often have broader product lines and are better positioned to withstand a significant reduction in capital spending by end-customers, and will therefore not be as susceptible to downturns in a particular market. The above competitive pressures are likely to continue to impact our business. We may not be able to compete successfully in the future, and competition may harm our business.

Human Capital Management

As of December 31, 2021, our total headcount was 10,195 employees, approximately 30% of whom were employed in the United States and approximately 70% of whom were employed outside of the United States.

Our employees are the foundation of our innovation and cybersecurity leadership for the benefit of our customers. We understand there is a shortage of highly skilled employees for security companies like ours, and we believe that our success and competitive advantage depends largely on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We believe we offer fair, competitive compensation and benefits, and we encourage a culture of fairness and meritocracy. Our compensation programs for our employees include base pay, incentive compensation, opportunities for equity ownership where local statutes allow and employee benefits that promote well-being across different aspects of our employees’ lives, which may include health and welfare insurance, retirement benefits and paid time off.

As a global company, much of our success is rooted in the diversity of our teams and our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Such commitment starts at the top, with a highly skilled and diverse board of directors. As of December 31, 2021, women represented one-third of the members of our board of directors, and approximately 56% of our board of directors was from underrepresented communities as defined by California’s Assembly Bill 979. We value diversity at all levels and continue to focus on enhancing our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across our workforce.

We are also committed to community engagement and social responsibility with regards to our employees and beyond, and our board of directors has active oversight of such initiatives. Examples of our initiatives focused on our employees include our company matching program for employee charitable contributions and the free security training programs we offer to help with career development for our employees, in addition to the general public.

Our culture is defined by our commitment to ethics and integrity. We reinforce our ethical “tone at the top” through clear policies including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, regular compliance training for our employees, quarterly meetings of our cross-functional Ethics Committee, clear messaging from our executives, enforcement of company policies and oversight by our board of directors. In addition, our Chief Executive Officer regularly communicates the importance of Fortinet’s core values of openness, teamwork and innovation.

We are committed to providing our employees a safe and healthy work environment. We sponsor a global wellness program designed to enhance physical, financial and mental wellbeing for all our employees around the world. Throughout the year, we encourage healthy behaviors through communications, educational sessions, wellness challenges and other incentives.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, our Chief Executive Officer committed to having no COVID-related layoffs, and, throughout the pandemic, not only have we kept that promise, we have continued hiring at a fast pace and have continued to help support our employees and their families through this challenging time. During the pandemic, we have taken a flexible approach to help our employees manage their work and personal responsibilities, with a focus on employee wellbeing, health and safety.

None of our U.S. employees are represented by a labor union. Our employees in certain European and Latin American countries, however, have the right to be represented by external labor organizations if they maintain up-to-date union membership. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Environmental, Social and Governance

We are committed to responsible environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) practices. This commitment starts with the Social Responsibility Committee of our board of directors providing oversight of our Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) strategy, initiatives and execution related to ESG matters. Our senior leadership sponsors the integration of CSR priorities throughout our business operations. In addition, our Global Head of Sustainability and CSR, along with our internal cross-functional employee CSR Committee, engage with internal and external stakeholders to lead CSR execution, communications and disclosure.

Environmental. We recognize climate change is a global crisis and are committed to doing our part to reduce negative environmental impact by setting clear goals, engaging in coalitions and collaborating across our value chain. We have engaged with a consultancy to measure our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and developed reduction plans based on science-based targets pathways. We also have begun to conduct an inventory of our Scope 3 emissions to look at the decarbonization of our broader value chain. Those actions align with our roadmap on helping do our part to mitigate climate change, with the aim of implementing a framework that aligns with the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”).

In November 2021, we publicly committed to a target of carbon neutrality on our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030 and announcing the completion of our new, net-zero building on our Sunnyvale headquarters campus, which was designed to be LEED-Gold certified.

Social. As discussed above, we prioritized the health and safety of our employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through our Global Supplier Code of Conduct and Contract Manufacturer agreement, we continued to reach across our supply chain to communicate our expectations regarding human rights, labor standards, business practices and workplace health and safety conditions. We are also committed to building an inclusive, equitable and diverse workforce within our organization and across the security industry, to help empower individuals to reach their full potential. In line with that commitment, we are focused on diversity, equity and inclusion as part of our mission to close the cybersecurity skills gap. Last year, we formalized our Education Outreach Program, which focuses on partnerships across the industry, academia, government and nonprofits to ensure we are helping train women, veterans and other under-represented groups. To support the creation of a cybersecurity-aware society, we published a children’s book designed to further increase cyber awareness among children and extended our free cybersecurity training courses empowering over 100,000 people from over 200 countries and territories to learn from our cyber-security training courses in 2021. We also made a public pledge to train one million people in cybersecurity by 2026.

Governance. Our culture is defined by our commitment to ethics and integrity. We stress the importance of ethical business practices in multiple ways, such as through our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, regular compliance training programs and ongoing communications. Reinforcing the importance of our ESG contributions, our board of directors established its Social Responsibility Committee to oversee our objectives, strategy and execution relating to sustainability and CSR, including ESG matters. As part of our regular engagement with our stockholders and our commitment to ESG, including our regular review of our corporate governance structure and evaluation of recent trends in corporate governance, we have evolved our corporate governance practices over time and have, since becoming a public company, implemented the following measures, among others: majority voting standard for uncontested elections of directors, allowing stockholders to call special meetings of our stockholders, declassification of our board of directors, proxy access, and stock ownership guidelines with respect to our non-employee directors.

Available Information

Our web site is located at https://www.fortinet.com, and our investor relations web site is located at https://investor.fortinet.com. The information posted on our website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Act, are available free of charge on our investor relations web site as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. You may also access all of our public filings through the SEC’s website at https://www.sec.gov.

We webcast our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community on our investor relations web site. Additionally, we provide notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance, including SEC filings, investor events and press and earnings releases, as part of our investor relations web site. The contents of these web sites are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this report or in any other report or document we file.