Item 1A. Risk Factors

A description of the risk factors associated with our business is set forth below. The list is not exhaustive and you should carefully consider these risks and uncertainties before investing in our common stock.

If we are unsuccessful at addressing our business challenges, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected and our ability to invest in and grow our business could be limited.

For the last few years, we have experienced a number of transitions as we have attempted to revitalize our business model, improve execution, and innovate new products and services. These transitions have involved significant turnover in management and other key personnel, changes in our strategic direction and, more recently, our decision to separate into two independent publicly-traded companies. Transitions of the order we have experienced or are experiencing can be disruptive and result in loss of institutional focus and employee morale, making execution of business strategies more difficult. We are also in the process of seeking to address the challenges of dynamic and accelerating market trends, such as the decline in the PC market, the market shift towards tablets within mobility and architectural shifts in the provision of security and storage solutions, all of which has made it more difficult for us to compete effectively and requires us to improve our product and service offerings. We may experience delays in the anticipated timing of activities related to our efforts to address these challenges and higher than expected or unanticipated execution costs. In addition, we are vulnerable to increased risks associated with these efforts given our multiple business units, the proposed separation and the broad range of geographic regions in which we and our customers and partners operate. If we do not succeed in these efforts, or if these efforts are more costly or time-consuming than expected, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected, which could limit our ability to invest in and grow our business.

We are pursuing a plan to separate our information management business into a new, independent publicly-traded company. The proposed separation may not be completed on the currently contemplated timeline or at all and, if completed, may not achieve the intended benefits.

In October 2014, we announced a plan to separate into two independent publicly-traded companies through a tax-free distribution to Symantec stockholders of 100% of the capital stock of our information management business (the “spin-off”). We could be delayed or prevented from completing the proposed separation, or be forced to complete it on terms or conditions that are less favorable and/or different than expected, for a variety of reasons, including unanticipated developments, such as delays in obtaining regulatory approvals or clearances, uncertainty of the financial markets. Furthermore, any significant delays or complications in our implementation of a new enterprise resource management system and IT infrastructure for our stand-alone information management business would adversely affect our ability to effect the separation in a timely manner and could result in significant business disruption, increased costs, or both. In addition, if other opportunities were to arise for the disposition of the information business that we believe are superior to the spin-off, we may elect not to complete the spin-off. Even if the transaction is completed, we may not realize some or all of the anticipated benefits from the proposed separation. Moreover, following the proposed separation, the combined value of the common stock of the two publicly-traded companies may not be equal to or greater than what the value of our common stock would have been had the proposed separation not occurred. In addition, we expect to spend substantial time, money and effort on completing the proposed separation without any assurance that it will be completed. Our investments in terms of financial and management resources may be significantly higher than expected, which could limit our ability to pursue other business opportunities and distract us from operating our businesses as currently conducted. Our focus on completing the separation, and resource constraints resulting from that focus, could also adversely affect the execution of our business strategy.

If we are unable to attract and retain qualified employees, lose key personnel, fail to integrate replacement personnel successfully, or fail to manage our employee base effectively, we may be unable to develop new and enhanced products and services, effectively manage or expand our business, or increase our revenues.

Our future success depends upon our ability to recruit and retain key management, technical, sales, marketing, finance, and other personnel. Our officers and other key personnel are employees-at-will, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to retain them. Competition for people with the specific skills that we require is significant, and we face difficulties in attracting,

retaining and motivating employees as a result. These difficulties may increase during the pendency of the proposed separation and following its completion. In order to attract and retain personnel in a competitive marketplace, we believe that we must provide a competitive compensation package, including cash and equity-based compensation. The volatility in our stock price may from time to time adversely affect our ability to recruit or retain employees. In addition, we may be unable to obtain required stockholder approvals of future increases in the number of shares available for issuance under our equity compensation plans, and accounting rules require us to treat the issuance of equity-based compensation as compensation expense. As a result, we may decide to issue fewer equity-based incentives and may be impaired in our efforts to attract and retain necessary personnel. If we are unable to hire and retain qualified employees, or conversely, if we fail to manage employee performance or reduce staffing levels when required by market conditions, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

Effective succession planning is also important to our long-term success. Failure to ensure effective transfer of knowledge and smooth transitions involving key employees could hinder our strategic planning and execution. From time to time, key personnel leave our company and the incidence of this increased in recent periods due to the transitions we have experienced over the last few years. While we strive to reduce the negative impact of such changes, the loss of any key employee could result in significant disruptions to our operations, including adversely affecting the timeliness of product releases, the successful implementation and completion of company initiatives, the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and our internal control over financial reporting, and our results of operations. In addition, hiring, training, and successfully integrating replacement sales and other personnel could be time consuming, may cause additional disruptions to our operations, and may be unsuccessful, which could negatively impact future revenues. These risks may be exacerbated by the uncertainty associated with the transitions we have experienced over the last few years, including the proposed separation.

Fluctuations in demand for our products and services are driven by many factors, and a decrease in demand for our products could adversely affect our financial results.

We are subject to fluctuations in demand for our products and services due to a variety of factors, including general economic conditions, competition, product obsolescence, technological change, shifts in buying patterns, financial difficulties and budget constraints of our current and potential customers, awareness of security threats to IT systems, and other factors. While such factors may, in some periods, increase product sales, fluctuations in demand can also negatively impact our product sales. If demand for our products and solutions declines, whether due to general economic conditions or a shift in buying patterns, our revenues and margins would likely be adversely affected.

If we are unable to develop new and enhanced products and services that achieve widespread market acceptance, or if we are unable to continually improve the performance, features, and reliability of our existing products and services or adapt our business model to keep pace with industry trends, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

Our future success depends on our ability to respond to the rapidly changing needs of our customers by developing or introducing new products, product upgrades, and services on a timely basis. We have in the past incurred, and will continue to incur, significant research and development expenses as we strive to remain competitive. Additionally, we are in the process of addressing the challenges of dynamic and accelerating market trends, such as the emergence of advanced persistent threats in the security space, the decline in the PC market, and the market shift towards tablets and handheld devices, all of which have made it more difficult for us to compete effectively. Customers may require features and capabilities that our current solutions do not have. Our failure to develop solutions that satisfy customer preferences in a timely and cost-effective manner may harm our ability to renew our subscriptions with existing customers and to create or increase demand for our solutions, and may adversely impact our operating results. New product development and introduction involves a significant commitment of time and resources and is subject to a number of risks and challenges including:

•	Managing the length of the development cycle for new products and product enhancements, which has frequently been longer than we originally expected;

•	Adapting to emerging and evolving industry standards and to technological developments by our competitors and customers;

•	Extending the operation of our products and services to new and evolving platforms, operating systems and hardware products, such as mobile devices;

•	Entering into new or unproven markets with which we have limited experience;

•	Managing new product and service strategies for the markets in which we operate;

•	Addressing trade compliance issues affecting our ability to ship our products;

•	Developing or expanding efficient sales channels; and

•	Obtaining sufficient licenses to technology and technical access from operating system software vendors on reasonable terms to enable the development and deployment of interoperable products, including source code licenses for certain products with deep technical integration into operating systems.

If we are not successful in managing these risks and challenges, or if our new products, product upgrades and services are not technologically competitive or do not achieve market acceptance, our business and operating results could be adversely affected. We may also experience increased difficulties in managing these risks and challenges during the pendency of the separation and following its completion.

We operate in a highly competitive environment, and our competitors may gain market share in the markets for our products that could adversely affect our business and cause our revenues to decline.

We operate in intensely competitive markets that experience rapid technological developments, changes in industry standards, changes in customer requirements, and frequent new product introductions and improvements. If we are unable to anticipate or react to these competitive challenges or if existing or new competitors gain market share in any of our markets, our competitive position could weaken and we could experience a decline in our sales that could adversely affect our business and operating results. To compete successfully, we must maintain an innovative research and development effort to develop new products and services and enhance existing products and services, effectively adapt to changes in the technology or product rights held by our competitors, appropriately respond to competitive strategies, and effectively adapt to technological changes and changes in the ways that our information is accessed, used, and stored within our enterprise and consumer markets. If we are unsuccessful in responding to our competitors or to changing technological and customer demands, our competitive position and our financial results could be adversely affected.

Our competitors include software vendors that offer software products that directly compete with our product offerings. In addition to competing with these vendors directly for sales to end-users of our products, we compete with them for the opportunity to have our products bundled with the product offerings of our strategic partners such as computer hardware OEMs and ISPs. Our competitors could gain market share from us if any of these strategic partners replace our products with the products of our competitors or if these partners more actively promote our competitors’ products than our products. In addition, software vendors who have bundled our products with theirs may choose to bundle their software with their own or other vendors’ software or may limit our access to standard product interfaces and inhibit our ability to develop products for their platform. In the future, further product development by these vendors could cause our software applications and services to become redundant, which could significantly impact our sales and financial results.

We face growing competition from network equipment, computer hardware manufacturers, large operating system providers and other technology companies. These firms are increasingly developing and incorporating into their products data protection and storage and server management software that competes at some levels with our product offerings. Our competitive position could be adversely affected to the extent that our customers perceive the functionality incorporated into these products as replacing the need for our products.

Security protection is also offered by some of our competitors at prices lower than our prices or, in some cases is offered free of charge. Some companies offer the lower-priced or free security products within their computer hardware or software products that we believe are inferior to our products and SaaS offerings. Our competitive position could be adversely affected to the extent that our customers perceive these security products as replacing the need for more effective, full featured products and services such as those that we provide. The expansion of these competitive trends could have a significant negative impact on our sales and financial results by causing, among other things, price reductions of our products, reduced profitability and loss of market share.

Many of our competitors have greater financial, technical, sales, marketing, or other resources than we do and consequently may have the ability to influence customers to purchase their products instead of ours. Further consolidation within our industry or other changes in the competitive environment, such as Intel Corporation’s acquisition of McAfee, could result in larger competitors that compete with us on several levels. We also face competition from many smaller companies that specialize in particular segments of the markets in which we compete.

If the separation, together with certain related transactions, is determined to be taxable for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we, our stockholders that are subject to U.S. federal income tax and/or the independent information management business could incur significant income tax liabilities.

Receipt of opinions from outside tax counsel and from a national accounting firm (together, the “tax opinions”) substantially to the effect that, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, the proposed separation and certain related internal transactions (collectively the "separation") will qualify under Sections 355 and 368 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code), will be a condition to the completion of the separation. In addition, we will seek a private letter ruling from the IRS to the effect that, among other things, certain aspects of the spin-off and certain other related transactions will not disqualify the spin-off or the related transactions from receiving the generally tax-free treatment that we are anticipating for U.S. federal income tax purposes under the same Code sections. The tax opinions and private letter ruling will rely on certain facts, assumptions,

representations and undertakings, including those regarding the past and future conduct of certain of our businesses and other matters. If any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are incorrect or not satisfied, we and our stockholders may not be able to rely on the tax opinions and could be subject to significant tax liabilities. Notwithstanding the tax opinions and private letter ruling, the IRS could determine on audit that the separation and certain other related transactions are taxable if it determines that any of these facts, assumptions, representations or undertakings are not correct or have been violated or if it disagrees with the conclusions in the tax opinions, or for other reasons. The tax opinions will not be binding on the IRS or the courts. Accordingly, the IRS or the courts may challenge the conclusions stated in the tax opinions and such challenge could prevail.

If the separation is determined to be taxable for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we and those of our stockholders that are subject to U.S. federal income tax could incur significant U.S. federal income tax liabilities. For example, if the spin-off fails to qualify for tax-free treatment, the transactions would, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, be treated as if the stock of the information management business was sold in a taxable sale for its fair market value, and our stockholders who are subject to U.S. federal income tax would be treated as receiving a taxable distribution in an amount equal to the fair market value of the stock received in the spin-off. Additionally, the parties and their respective affiliates could incur significant U.S. and foreign income tax liabilities if it is ultimately determined that certain related internal transactions undertaken in connection with the separation are taxable.

The parties might not be able to engage in desirable strategic transactions and equity issuances following the separation because of restrictions relating to U.S. federal income tax requirements for tax-free distributions.

The parties' ability to engage in significant equity transactions could be limited or restricted after the separation in order to preserve, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, the tax-free nature of the separation and certain related internal transactions. Even if the separation otherwise qualifies for tax-free treatment under Section 355 of the Code, it may result in corporate-level taxable gain to Symantec if 50% or more, by vote or value, of our shares or shares of the independent information management business are acquired or issued as part of a plan or series of related transactions that includes the separation. Any acquisitions or issuances of the shares of either party within two years after the separation are generally presumed to be part of such a plan, although the parties may be able to rebut that presumption.

To preserve the tax-free treatment to us of the separation, the parties will agree not to take or fail to take any action that prevents the separation and related transactions from being tax-free, among other restrictions. These restrictions may limit our ability to pursue strategic transactions.

Fluctuations in our quarterly financial results have affected the price of our common stock in the past and could affect our stock price in the future.

Our quarterly financial results have fluctuated in the past and are likely to vary significantly in the future due to a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control. If our quarterly financial results or our predictions of future financial results fail to meet our expectations or the expectations of securities analysts and investors, our stock price could be negatively affected. Any volatility in our quarterly financial results may make it more difficult for us to raise capital in the future or pursue acquisitions that involve issuances of our stock. Our operating results for prior periods may not be effective predictors of our future performance.

Factors associated with our industry, the operation of our business, and the markets for our products may cause our quarterly financial results to fluctuate, including:

•	Reduced demand for any of our products and services;

•	Entry of new competition into our markets;

•	Competitive pricing pressure for one or more of our classes of products;

•	Our ability to timely complete the release of new or enhanced versions of our products;

•	How well we execute our strategy and operating plans and the impact of changes in our business model that could result in significant restructuring charges;

•	Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates;

•	The number, severity, and timing of threat outbreaks (e.g. worms and viruses);

•	Our resellers making a substantial portion of their purchases near the end of each quarter;

•	Enterprise customers’ tendency to negotiate site licenses near the end of each quarter;

•	Cancellation, deferral, or limitation of orders by customers;

•	Changes in the mix or type of products sold;

•	Movements in interest rates;

•	The rate of adoption of new product technologies and new releases of operating systems;

•	Changes in accounting rules;

•	Weakness or uncertainty in general economic or industry conditions in any of the multiple markets in which we operate that could reduce customer demand and ability to pay for our products and services;

•	Political and military instability, which could slow spending within our target markets, delay sales cycles, and otherwise adversely affect our ability to generate revenues and operate effectively;

•	Budgetary constraints of customers, which are influenced by corporate earnings and government budget cycles and spending objectives;

•	Disruptions in our business operations or target markets caused by, among other things, earthquakes, floods, or other natural disasters affecting our headquarters located in Silicon Valley, California, an area known for seismic activity, or our other locations worldwide;

•	Acts of war or terrorism;

•	Intentional disruptions by third parties; and

•	Health or similar issues, such as a pandemic.

Any of the foregoing factors could cause the trading price of our common stock to fluctuate significantly.

Our business models present execution and competitive risks.

In recent years, our SaaS offerings have become increasingly critical in our business. Our competitors are rapidly developing and deploying SaaS offerings for consumers and business customers. Pricing and delivery models are evolving. Devices and form factors influence how users access services in the cloud. We are devoting significant resources to develop and deploy our own SaaS strategies. We cannot assure you that our investments in and development of SaaS offerings will achieve the expected returns for us or that we will be able to compete successfully in the marketplace. In addition to software development costs, we are incurring costs to build and maintain infrastructure to support SaaS offerings. These costs may reduce the operating margins we have previously achieved. Whether we are successful in this business model depends on our execution in a number of areas, including:

•	Continuing to innovate and bring to market compelling cloud-based experiences that generate increasing traffic and market share; and

•	Ensuring that our SaaS offerings meet the reliability expectations of our customers and maintain the security of their data.

We may need to change our pricing models to compete successfully.

The intense competition we face in the sales of our products and services and general economic and business conditions can put pressure on us to change our prices. If our competitors offer deep discounts on certain products or services or develop products that the marketplace considers more valuable, we may need to lower prices or offer other favorable terms in order to compete successfully. Any such changes may reduce margins and could adversely affect operating results. Additionally, the increasing prevalence of cloud and SaaS delivery models offered by us and our competitors may unfavorably impact pricing in both our on-premise enterprise software business and our cloud business, as well as overall demand for our on-premise software product and service offerings, which could reduce our revenues and profitability. Our competitors may offer lower pricing on their support offerings, which could put pressure on us to further discount our product or support pricing.

Any broad-based change to our prices and pricing policies could cause our revenues to decline or be delayed as our sales force implements and our customers adjust to the new pricing policies. Some of our competitors may bundle products for promotional purposes or as a long-term pricing strategy or provide guarantees of prices and product implementations. These practices could, over time, significantly constrain the prices that we can charge for certain of our products. If we do not adapt our pricing models to reflect changes in customer use of our products or changes in customer demand, our revenues could decrease. The increase in open source software distribution may also cause us to change our pricing models.

Our business depends on customers renewing their arrangements for maintenance, subscriptions, managed security services and SaaS offerings.

A large portion of our revenue is derived from arrangements for maintenance, subscriptions, managed security services and SaaS offerings, yet existing customers have no contractual obligation to purchase additional solutions after the initial subscription or contract period. Our customers’ renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including the level of their satisfaction with our solutions or our customer support, customer budgets and the pricing of our solutions compared with the solutions offered by our competitors, any of which may cause our revenue to grow more slowly

than expected, if at all. Accordingly, we must invest significant time and resources in providing ongoing value to our customers. If these efforts fail, or if our customers do not renew for other reasons, or if they renew on terms less favorable to us, our revenue may decline and our business will suffer.

Our increasing focus on the delivery of products in an appliance form factor creates new business and financial risks.

Since fiscal 2012, shipments of products to customers in an appliance form factor have represented an increasingly larger part of our revenues, particularly in our information management segment, and we expect this trend to continue. The delivery of solutions in the form of appliances creates business and financial risks, including the following:

•	Increased cost of components and contract manufacturing, as we do not own our manufacturing facilities;

•	Supply chain issues, including financial problems of contract manufacturers or component suppliers;

•	A shortage of adequate component supply or manufacturing capacity that increases our costs and/or causes a delay in order fulfillment;

•	Excess inventory levels, which could lead to write-downs or obsolescence charges;

•	Additional reserves for product returns;

•	Challenges in managing our channel business;

•	Tax and trade compliance complications; and

•	Local field support of customers’ appliances.

Defects, disruptions or risks related to the provision of our SaaS offerings could impair our ability to deliver our services and could expose us to liability, damage our brand and reputation or otherwise negatively impact our business.

Our SaaS offerings may contain errors or defects that users identify after they begin using them that could result in unanticipated service interruptions, which could harm our reputation and our business. Since our customers use our SaaS offerings for mission-critical protection from threats to electronic information, endpoint devices, and computer networks, any errors, defects, disruptions in service or other performance problems with our SaaS offerings could significantly harm our reputation and may damage our customers’ businesses. If that occurs, customers could elect not to renew, or delay or withhold payment to us, we could lose future sales or customers may make warranty or other claims against us, which could result in an increase in our provision for doubtful accounts, an increase in collection cycles for accounts receivable or the expense and risk of litigation.

We currently serve our SaaS-based customers from hosting facilities located across the globe. Damage to, or failure of, any significant element of these hosting facilities could result in interruptions in our service, which could harm our customers and expose us to liability. Interruptions or failures in our service delivery could cause customers to terminate their subscriptions with us, could adversely affect our renewal rates, and could harm our ability to attract new customers. Our business would also be harmed if our customers believe that our SaaS offerings are unreliable.

Our SaaS offerings also involve the storage and transmission of large amounts of our customers’ proprietary information, including sensitive and personally identifiable information. Breaches of our security measures or the accidental loss, inadvertent disclosure or unapproved dissemination of proprietary information or sensitive or confidential data about us or our customers, including the potential loss or disclosure of such information or data as a result of fraud or other forms of deception, could expose us, our customers or the individuals affected to a risk of loss or misuse of this information, result in litigation and potential liability for us, damage our brand and reputation or otherwise negatively impact our business. Despite our precautions and significant ongoing investments to protect against such breaches, our security measures could be breached at any time and could result in unauthorized third parties obtaining access to our, or our customers’ data. Any actual or perceived security vulnerabilities in our SaaS offerings could reduce sales, and constrain consumer and business customer adoption of our SaaS offering. In addition, the cost and operational consequences of implementing further security measures could be significant. In addition, prolonged delays or unforeseen difficulties in connection with adding storage capacity or upgrading our network architecture when required may cause our service quality to suffer. Problems with the reliability or security of our systems could harm our reputation.

We process, store and use personal information and other data, which subjects us to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to privacy, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business.

We receive, store, and process personal information and other customer data. There are numerous federal, state, local and foreign laws regarding privacy and the storing, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection of personal information and other customer data, the scope of which are changing and, subject to differing interpretations. We generally seek to comply with industry standards and are subject to the terms of our privacy policies and privacy-related obligations to third parties. We strive to comply with all applicable laws, policies, legal obligations and industry codes of conduct relating to privacy and data

protection to the extent possible. However, it is possible that these obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other rules or our practices. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with our privacy policies, our privacy-related obligations to customers or other third parties, our privacy-related legal obligations, or any compromise of security that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personally identifiable information or other customer data, may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation, or public statements against us by consumer advocacy groups or others and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Our customers may also accidentally disclose their passwords or store them on a mobile device that is lost or stolen, creating the perception that our systems are not secure against third-party access. Additionally, if third parties that we work with, such as vendors or developers, violate applicable laws or our policies, such violations may also put our customers’ information at risk and could in turn have an adverse effect on our business. Any significant change to applicable laws, regulations or industry practices regarding the use or disclosure of our customers’ data, or regarding the manner in which the express or implied consent of customers for the use and disclosure of such data is obtained, could require us to modify our solutions and features, possibly in a material manner, and may limit our ability to develop new services and features that make use of the data that our customers voluntarily share with us.

If we fail to manage our sales and distribution channels effectively, or if our partners choose not to market and sell our products to their customers, our operating results could be adversely affected.

We sell our products to customers around the world through multi-tiered sales and distribution networks. Sales through these different channels involve distinct risks, including the following:

Direct Sales. A significant portion of our revenues from enterprise products is derived from sales by our direct sales force to end-users. Special risks associated with direct sales include:

•	Longer sales cycles associated with direct sales efforts;

•	Difficulty in hiring, retaining, and motivating our direct sales force, particularly through periods of transition in our organization; and

•	Substantial amounts of training for sales representatives to become productive in selling our products and services, including regular updates to cover new and revised products, and associated delays and difficulties in recognizing the expected benefits of investments in new products and updates.

Indirect Sales Channels. A significant portion of our revenues is derived from sales through indirect channels, including distributors that sell our products to end-users and other resellers. This channel involves a number of risks, including:

•	Our lack of control over the timing of delivery of our products to end-users;

•	Our resellers and distributors are generally not subject to minimum sales requirements or any obligation to market our products to their customers;

•	Our reseller and distributor agreements are generally nonexclusive and may be terminated at any time without cause;

•	Our resellers and distributors frequently market and distribute competing products and may, from time to time, place greater emphasis on the sale of these products due to pricing, promotions, and other terms offered by our competitors; and

•	The consolidation of electronics retailers has increased their negotiating power with respect to hardware and software providers such as us.

OEM Sales Channels. A portion of our revenues is derived from sales through our OEM partners that incorporate our products into, or bundle our products with, their products. Our reliance on this sales channel involves many risks, including:

•	Our lack of control over the volume of systems shipped and the timing of such shipments;

•	Our OEM partners are generally not subject to minimum sales requirements or any obligation to market our products to their customers;

•	Our OEM partners may terminate or renegotiate their arrangements with us and new terms may be less favorable due to competitive conditions in our markets and other factors;

•	Sales through our OEM partners are subject to changes in general economic conditions, strategic direction, competitive risks, and other issues that could result in a reduction of OEM sales;

•	The development work that we must generally undertake under our agreements with our OEM partners may require us to invest significant resources and incur significant costs with little or no assurance of ever receiving associated revenues;

•	The time and expense required for the sales and marketing organizations of our OEM partners to become familiar with our products may make it more difficult to introduce those products to the market; and

•	Our OEM partners may develop, market, and distribute their own products and market and distribute products of our competitors, which could reduce our sales.

If we fail to manage our sales and distribution channels successfully, these channels may conflict with one another or otherwise fail to perform as we anticipate, which could reduce our sales and increase our expenses as well as weaken our competitive position. Some of our distribution partners have experienced financial difficulties in the past, and if our partners suffer financial difficulties in the future because of general economic conditions or for other reasons, these partners may delay paying their obligations to us and we may have reduced sales or increased bad debt expense that could adversely affect our operating results. In addition, reliance on multiple channels subjects us to events that could cause unpredictability in demand, which could increase the risk that we may be unable to plan effectively for the future, and could result in adverse operating results in future periods.

Over the long term we intend to invest in research and development activities, and these investments may achieve delayed, or lower than expected, benefits which could harm our operating results.

While we continue to focus on managing our costs and expenses, over the long term, we also intend to invest significantly in research and development activities as we focus on organic growth through internal innovation in each of our business segments. We believe that we must continue to dedicate a significant amount of resources to our research and development efforts to maintain our competitive position. We recognize the costs associated with these research and development investments earlier than the anticipated benefits, and the return on these investments may be lower, or may develop more slowly, than we expect. If we do not achieve the benefits anticipated from these investments, or if the achievement of these benefits is delayed, our operating results may be adversely affected.

Changes in industry structure and market conditions could lead to charges related to discontinuances of certain of our products or businesses and asset impairments.

In response to changes in industry and market conditions, or in connection with our pending separation, we may be required to strategically reallocate our resources and consider restructuring, disposing of, or otherwise exiting businesses. Any decision to limit investment in or dispose of or otherwise exit businesses may result in the recording of special charges, such as inventory and technology-related write-offs, workforce reduction costs, charges relating to consolidation of excess facilities, or claims from third parties who were resellers or users of discontinued products. Our estimates with respect to the useful life or ultimate recoverability of our carrying basis of assets, including purchased intangible assets, could change as a result of such assessments and decisions. Although in certain instances, our supply agreements allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business needs prior to firm orders being placed, our loss contingencies may include liabilities for contracts that we cannot cancel, reschedule or adjust with contract manufacturers and suppliers. Further, our estimates relating to the liabilities for excess facilities are affected by changes in real estate market conditions. Additionally, we are required to evaluate goodwill impairment on an annual basis and between annual evaluations in certain circumstances, and future goodwill impairment evaluations may result in a charge to earnings.

Our inability to successfully recover from a disaster or other business continuity event could impair our ability to deliver our products and services and harm our business.

We are heavily reliant on our technology and infrastructure to provide our products and services to our customers. For example, we host many of our products using third-party data center facilities and we do not control the operation of these facilities. These facilities are vulnerable to damage, interruption or performance problems from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications failures and similar events. They are also subject to break-ins, computer viruses, sabotage, intentional acts of vandalism and other misconduct. The occurrence of a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, a decision to close the facilities without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems could result in lengthy interruptions in the delivery of our products and services.

Furthermore, our business administration, human resources and finance services depend on the proper functioning of our computer, telecommunication and other related systems and operations. A disruption or failure of these systems or operations because of a disaster or other business continuity event could cause data to be lost or otherwise delay our ability to complete sales and provide the highest level of service to our customers. In addition, we could have difficulty producing accurate financial statements on a timely basis, which could adversely affect the trading value of our stock. Although we endeavor to ensure there is redundancy in these systems and that they are regularly backed-up, there are no assurances that data recovery in the event of a disaster would be effective or occur in an efficient manner.

Any errors, defects, disruptions or other performance problems with our products and services could harm our reputation and may damage our customers’ businesses. For example, we may experience disruptions, outages and other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, capacity constraints due to an

overwhelming number of users accessing our website simultaneous, fraud or security attacks. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. Interruptions in our products and services could impact our revenues or cause customers to cease doing business with us. In addition, our business would be harmed if any of events of this nature caused our customers and potential customers to believe our services are unreliable. Our operations are dependent upon our ability to protect our technology infrastructure against damage from business continuity events that could have a significant disruptive effect on our operations. We could potentially lose customer data or experience material adverse interruptions to our operations or delivery of services to our clients in a disaster recovery scenario.

We have grown, and may continue to grow, through acquisitions, which gives rise to risks and challenges that could adversely affect our future financial results.

We have in the past acquired, and we expect to acquire in the future, other businesses, business units, and technologies. Acquisitions can involve a number of special risks and challenges, including:

•	Complexity, time, and costs associated with the integration of acquired business operations, workforce, products, and technologies;

•	Diversion of management time and attention;

•	Loss or termination of employees, including costs associated with the termination or replacement of those employees;

•	Assumption of liabilities of the acquired business, including litigation related to the acquired business;

•	The addition of acquisition-related debt as well as increased expenses and working capital requirements;

•	Dilution of stock ownership of existing stockholders; and

•	Substantial accounting charges for restructuring and related expenses, write-off of in-process research and development, impairment of goodwill, amortization of intangible assets, and stock-based compensation expense.

If integration of our acquired businesses is not successful, we may not realize the potential benefits of an acquisition or suffer other adverse effects. To integrate acquired businesses, we must implement our technology systems in the acquired operations and integrate and manage the personnel of the acquired operations. We also must effectively integrate the different cultures of acquired business organizations into our own in a way that aligns various interests, and may need to enter new markets in which we have no or limited experience and where competitors in such markets have stronger market positions.

Any of the foregoing, and other factors, could harm our ability to achieve anticipated levels of profitability from our acquired businesses or to realize other anticipated benefits of acquisitions.

Our international operations involve risks that could increase our expenses, adversely affect our operating results, and require increased time and attention of our management.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from customers located outside of the U.S. and we have significant operations outside of the U.S., including engineering, sales, customer support, and production. We plan to expand our international operations, but such expansion is contingent upon our identification of growth opportunities. Our international operations are subject to risks in addition to those faced by our domestic operations, including:

•	Potential loss of proprietary information due to misappropriation or laws that may be less protective of our intellectual property rights than U.S. laws or that may not be adequately enforced;

•	Requirements of foreign laws and other governmental controls, including trade and labor restrictions and related laws that reduce the flexibility of our business operations;

•	Regulations or restrictions on the use, import, or export of encryption technologies that could delay or prevent the acceptance and use of encryption products and public networks for secure communications;

•	Local business and cultural factors that differ from our normal standards and practices, including business practices that we are prohibited from engaging in by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other anti-corruption laws and regulations;

•	Central bank and other restrictions on our ability to repatriate cash from our international subsidiaries or to exchange cash in international subsidiaries into cash available for use in the U.S.;

•	Fluctuations in currency exchange rates, economic instability and inflationary conditions could reduce our customers’ ability to obtain financing for software products or could make our products more expensive or could increase our costs of doing business in certain countries;

•	Limitations on future growth or inability to maintain current levels of revenues from international sales if we do not invest sufficiently in our international operations;

•	Longer payment cycles for sales in foreign countries and difficulties in collecting accounts receivable;

•	Difficulties in staffing, managing, and operating our international operations, including difficulties related to administering our stock plans in some foreign countries;

•	Difficulties in coordinating the activities of our geographically dispersed and culturally diverse operations;

•	Seasonal reductions in business activity in the summer months in Europe and in other periods in other countries;

•	Costs and delays associated with developing software and providing support in multiple languages; and

•	Political unrest, war, or terrorism, or regional natural disasters, particularly in areas in which we have facilities.

A significant portion of our transactions outside of the U.S. is denominated in foreign currencies. Accordingly, our revenues and expenses will continue to be subject to fluctuations in foreign currency rates. For example, in recent periods the U.S. dollar has strengthened significantly against the Euro and other major currencies, which has adversely impacted our reported international revenue. We expect to be affected by fluctuations in foreign currency rates in the future, especially if international sales continue to grow as a percentage of our total sales or our operations outside the U.S. continue to increase.

The level of corporate income tax from sales to our non-U.S. customers is generally less than the level of tax from sales to our U.S. customers. This benefit is contingent upon existing tax regulations in the U.S. and in the countries in which our international operations are located. Future changes in domestic or international tax regulations could adversely affect our ability to continue to realize these tax benefits.

Our products are complex and operate in a wide variety of environments, systems, applications and configurations, which could result in errors or product failures.

Because we offer very complex products, undetected errors, failures, or bugs may occur, especially when products are first introduced or when new versions are released. Our products are often installed and used in large-scale computing environments with different operating systems, system management software, and equipment and networking configurations, which may cause errors or failures in our products or may expose undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our products. Our customers’ computing environments are often characterized by a wide variety of standard and non-standard configurations that make pre-release testing for programming or compatibility errors very difficult and time-consuming. In addition, despite testing by us and others, errors, failures, or bugs may not be found in new products or releases until after commencement of commercial shipments. In the past, we have discovered software errors, failures, and bugs in certain of our product offerings after their introduction and, in some cases, have experienced delayed or lost revenues as a result of these errors.

Errors, failures, or bugs in products released by us could result in negative publicity, damage to our brand, product returns, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our products, loss of competitive position, or claims by customers or others. Many of our end-user customers use our products in applications that are critical to their businesses and may have a greater sensitivity to defects in our products than to defects in other, less critical, software products. In addition, if an actual or perceived breach of information integrity, security or availability occurs in one of our end-user customer’s systems, regardless of whether the breach is attributable to our products, the market perception of the effectiveness of our products could be harmed. Alleviating any of these problems could require significant expenditures of our capital and other resources and could cause interruptions, delays, or cessation of our product licensing, which could cause us to lose existing or potential customers and could adversely affect our operating results.

If we do not protect our proprietary information and prevent third parties from making unauthorized use of our products and technology, our financial results could be harmed.

Most of our software and underlying technology is proprietary. We seek to protect our proprietary rights through a combination of confidentiality agreements and procedures and through copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws. However, all of these measures afford only limited protection and may be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented by third parties. Third parties may copy all or portions of our products or otherwise obtain, use, distribute, and sell our proprietary information without authorization.

Third parties may also develop similar or superior technology independently by designing around our patents. Our shrink-wrap license agreements are not signed by licensees and therefore may be unenforceable under the laws of some jurisdictions. Furthermore, the laws of some foreign countries do not offer the same level of protection of our proprietary rights as the laws of the U.S., and we may be subject to unauthorized use of our products in those countries. The unauthorized copying or use of our products or proprietary information could result in reduced sales of our products. Any legal action to protect proprietary information that we may bring or be engaged in with a strategic partner or vendor could adversely affect our ability to access software, operating system, and hardware platforms of such partner or vendor, or cause such partner or vendor to choose not to offer our products to their customers. In addition, any legal action to protect proprietary information that we may bring or be engaged in, could be costly, may distract management from day-to-day operations, and may lead to additional claims against us, which could adversely affect our operating results.

From time to time we are a party to lawsuits and investigations, which typically require significant management time and attention and result in significant legal expenses, and which could, if not determined favorably, negatively impact our business, financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.

We have been named as a party to lawsuits, including patent litigation, class actions and governmental claims, and we may be named in additional litigation. The expense of defending such litigation may be costly and divert management’s attention from the day-to-day operations of our business, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and cash flows. In addition, an unfavorable outcome in such litigation could result in significant fines, settlements, monetary damages or injunctive relief that could negatively impact our ability to conduct our business, results of operations, and cash flows.

Third parties claiming that we infringe their proprietary rights could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and prevent us from selling our products.

From time to time, third parties may claim that we have infringed their intellectual property rights, including claims regarding patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Because of constant technological change in the segments in which we compete, the extensive patent coverage of existing technologies, and the rapid rate of issuance of new patents, it is possible that the number of these claims may grow. In addition, former employers of our former, current, or future employees may assert claims that such employees have improperly disclosed to us the confidential or proprietary information of these former employers. Any such claim, with or without merit, could result in costly litigation and distract management from day-to-day operations. If we are not successful in defending such claims, we could be required to stop selling, delay shipments of, or redesign our products, pay monetary amounts as damages, enter into royalty or licensing arrangements, or satisfy indemnification obligations that we have with some of our customers. We cannot assure you that any royalty or licensing arrangements that we may seek in such circumstances will be available to us on commercially reasonable terms or at all. We have made and expect to continue making significant expenditures to investigate, defend and settle claims related to the use of technology and intellectual property rights as part of our strategy to manage this risk.

In addition, we license and use software from third parties in our business. These third party software licenses may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms or at all, and may expose us to additional liability. This liability, or our inability to use any of this third party software, could result in shipment delays or other disruptions in our business that could materially and adversely affect our operating results.

Adverse global economic events may harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Adverse macroeconomic conditions could negatively affect our business, operating results or financial condition under a number of different scenarios. During challenging economic times and periods of high unemployment, current or potential customers may delay or forgo decisions to license new products or additional instances of existing products, upgrade their existing hardware or operating environments (which upgrades are often a catalyst for new purchases of our software), or purchase services. Customers may also have difficulties in obtaining the requisite third-party financing to complete the purchase of our products and services. An adverse macroeconomic environment could also subject us to increased credit risk should customers be unable to pay us, or delay paying us, for previously purchased products and services. Accordingly, reserves for doubtful accounts and write-offs of accounts receivable may increase. In addition, weakness in the market for end users of our products could harm the cash flow of our distributors and resellers who could then delay paying their obligations to us or experience other financial difficulties. This would further increase our credit risk exposure and, potentially, cause delays in our recognition of revenue on sales to these customers.

In addition, the onset or continuation of adverse economic conditions may make it more difficult to obtain financing for our operations, investing activities (including potential acquisitions) or financing activities. Specific economic trends, such as declines in the demand for PCs, servers, and other computing devices, or softness in corporate information technology spending, could have an even more direct, and harmful, impact on our business.

Our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected if we do not effectively manage our liabilities.

As a result of the sale of our 2.75% senior notes (“2.75% notes due 2015”) and 4.20% senior notes (“4.20% notes”) in September 2010, and 2.75% senior notes (“2.75 notes due 2017”) and 3.95% senior notes (“3.95% notes”) in June 2012, we have notes outstanding in an aggregate principal amount of $2.1 billion that mature at specific dates in calendar years 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2022. In addition, we have entered into a credit facility with a borrowing capacity of $1 billion. From time to time in the future, we may also incur indebtedness in addition to the amount available under our credit facility. The maintenance of our debt levels could adversely affect our flexibility to take advantage of certain corporate opportunities and could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We may be required to use all or a substantial portion of our cash balance to repay these notes on maturity unless we can obtain new financing. There is a risk that we may not be able to refinance existing debt or that the terms of any refinancing may not be as favorable as the terms of our existing debt. Furthermore, if prevailing interest rates or other factors at the time of

refinancing result in higher interest rates upon refinancing, then the interest expense relating to that refinanced indebtedness would increase. In addition, changes by any rating agency to our outlook or credit rating could negatively affect the value of both our debt and equity securities and increase the interest we pay on outstanding or future debt. These risks could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our software products, SaaS Offerings and website may be subject to intentional disruption that could adversely impact our reputation and future sales.

Despite our precautions and significant ongoing investments to protect against security risks, data protection breaches, cyber-attacks and other intentional disruptions of our products and offerings, we expect to be an ongoing target of attacks specifically designed to impede the performance and availability of our products and offerings and harm our reputation as a company. Similarly, experienced computer programmers may attempt to penetrate our network security or the security of our website and misappropriate proprietary information or cause interruptions of our services. Because the techniques used by such computer programmers to access or sabotage networks change frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques. The theft or unauthorized use or publication of our trade secrets and other confidential business information as a result of such an event could adversely affect our competitive position, reputation, brand and future sales of our products, and our customers may assert claims against us related to resulting losses of confidential or proprietary information. Furthermore, our employees or contractors may, either intentionally or unintentionally, subject us to information security risks and incidents. Our business could be subject to significant disruption, and we could suffer monetary and other losses and reputational harm, in the event of such incidents.

Some of our products contain “open source” software, and any failure to comply with the terms of one or more of these open source licenses could negatively affect our business.

Certain of our products are distributed with software licensed by its authors or other third parties under so-called “open source” licenses, which may include, by way of example, the GNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License, the Mozilla Public License, the BSD License, and the Apache License. Some of these licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the open source software, and that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of a particular open source license or other license granting third parties certain rights of further use. By the terms of certain open source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software if we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner. 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 controls on origin of the software. 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, but we cannot be sure that all open source is submitted for approval prior to use in our products. In addition, many of the risks associated with usage of open source cannot be eliminated, and could, if not properly addressed, negatively affect our business.

If we are unable to adequately address increased customer demands on our technical support services, our relationships with our customers and our financial results may be adversely affected.

We offer technical support services with many of our products. We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for support services. We also may be unable to modify the format of our support services to compete with changes in support services provided by competitors or successfully integrate support for our customers. Further customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenues, could increase costs and adversely affect our operating results.

We have outsourced a substantial portion of our worldwide consumer support functions to third party service providers. If these companies experience financial difficulties, do not maintain sufficiently skilled workers and resources to satisfy our contracts, or otherwise fail to perform at a sufficient level under these contracts, the level of support services to our customers may be significantly disrupted, which could materially harm our relationships with these customers.

We sell products to the U.S. government under contracts that include special compliance obligations and subject us to audits and reviews by various agencies of the U.S. government. Any failure to meet these obligations, or an adverse outcome in an audit or investigation, could result in civil damages and/or penalties being assessed against us by the government.

We have sold products through our GSA Schedule contract. Our GSA Schedule contract contains provisions that require us to provide customers purchasing through that contract with negotiated favorable pricing as compared to certain non-federal customers, and requires us to monitor aspects of our commercial sales practices to ensure compliance with that pricing obligation. In the ordinary course of business, sales under our GSA Schedule contract may be subject to audit or investigation by the U.S. government. Noncompliance with the provisions of the contract identified as a result of such reviews (as well as noncompliance identified on our own) could subject us to damages and other penalties, which would adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.

On June 4, 2012, we were advised by the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division and the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia that the government is investigating our compliance with certain provisions of our GSA Schedule contract, including provisions relating to pricing, country of origin, accessibility, and the disclosure of commercial sales practices. The Department of Justice has requested that we preserve, among other things, all records relating to GSA Schedule contracting activity. As reported on the GSA’s publicly-available database, our total sales under the GSA Schedule contract were approximately $222 million from the period beginning January 2007 and ending September 2012. In 2012, a sealed civil lawsuit was filed against Symantec related to compliance with the GSA Schedule contract and contracts with California, Florida, and New York. In July 2014, following expiration of the Court-imposed seal, the U.S. government intervened in the lawsuit and in September 2014, the states of California and Florida intervened in the lawsuit, and the state of New York notified the Court that it would not intervene. In October 2014, the Department of Justice filed an amended complaint, which did not state a specific damages amount, and California and Florida combined their claims with those of the Department of Justice and the relator on behalf of New York in an Omnibus Complaint. The state claims also do not state specific damages amounts.

It is possible that the litigation could lead to claims or findings of violations of the False Claims Act and could be material to our results of operations and cash flows for any period. Violations of the False Claims Act could result in the imposition of damages, including up to treble damages, plus civil penalties in some cases. Whether or not we are successful in defending ourselves in the litigation, the cost to resolve this matter would adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. Any negative publicity related to our government customer contracts or any proceedings surrounding them, regardless of the outcome of this matter, may also damage our business by affecting our ability to compete for new contracts.

Accounting charges may cause fluctuations in our quarterly financial results.

Our financial results have been in the past, and may continue to be in the future, materially affected by non-cash and other accounting charges, including:

•	Amortization of intangible assets;

•	Impairment of goodwill and other long-lived assets;

•	Stock-based compensation expense;

•	Restructuring charges; and

•	Loss on sale of a business and similar write-downs of assets held for sale.

Our effective tax rate may increase, which could increase our income tax expense and reduce (increase) our net income (loss).

Our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by several factors, many of which are outside of our control, including:

•	Changes in the relative proportions of revenues and income before taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we operate that have differing statutory tax rates;

•	Changing tax laws, regulations, and interpretations in multiple jurisdictions in which we operate, including possible corporate tax reform in the U.S., and proposed actions by international bodies such as the OECD, as well as the requirements of certain tax rulings;

•	The tax effects of purchase accounting for acquisitions and restructuring charges that may cause fluctuations between reporting periods;

•	Tax assessments, or any related tax interest or penalties that could significantly affect our income tax expense for the period in which the settlements take place; and

•	Taxes arising in connection with the separation of certain foreign operations of the Information Management business.

The price of our common stock could decline if our financial results are materially affected by an adverse change in our effective tax rate.

We report our results of operations based on our determination of the aggregate amount of taxes owed in the tax jurisdictions in which we operate. From time to time, we receive notices that a tax authority in a particular jurisdiction believes that we owe a greater amount of tax than we have reported to such authority. We are regularly engaged in discussions and sometimes disputes with these tax authorities. We are engaged in disputes of this nature at this time. If the ultimate determination of our taxes owed in any of these jurisdictions is for an amount in excess of the tax provision we have recorded or reserved for, our operating results, cash flows, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Our stock price may be volatile in the future, and you could lose the value of your investment.

The market price of our common stock has experienced significant fluctuations in the past and may continue to fluctuate in the future, and as a result you could lose the value of your investment. The market price of our common stock may be affected by a number of factors, including:

•	Announcements of quarterly operating results and revenue and earnings forecasts by us that fail to meet or be consistent with our earlier projections or the expectations of our investors or securities analysts;

•	Announcements by either our competitors or customers that fail to meet or be consistent with their earlier projections or the expectations of our investors or securities analysts;

•	Rumors, announcements, or press articles regarding our or our competitors’ operations, management, organization, financial condition, or financial statements;

•	Changes in revenue and earnings estimates by us, our investors, or securities analysts;

•	Accounting charges, including charges relating to the impairment of goodwill;

•	Announcements of planned acquisitions or dispositions by us or by our competitors;

•	Announcements of new or planned products by us, our competitors, or our customers;

•	Gain or loss of a significant customer, partner, reseller or distributor;

•	Inquiries by the SEC, NASDAQ, law enforcement, or other regulatory bodies;

•	Acts of terrorism, the threat of war, and other crises or emergency situations; and

•	Economic slowdowns or the perception of an oncoming economic slowdown in any of the major markets in which we operate.

The stock market in general, and the market prices of stocks of technology companies in particular, have experienced extreme price volatility that has adversely affected, and may continue to adversely affect, the market price of our common stock for reasons unrelated to our business or operating results.

Unforeseen catastrophic or other global events could harm our operating results and financial condition.

We are a global company and conduct our business inside and outside the U.S. Our business operations and financial results could be adversely impacted by unforeseen catastrophic or other global events, including an epidemic or a pandemic, acts of war or terrorist attacks, cyber-attacks, natural disasters, or political unrest or turmoil. Unforeseen political turmoil, military escalations, and armed conflict pose a risk of economic disruption in the countries in which they occur and in other countries, which may increase our operating costs. Such incidences of uncertainty could disrupt customers’ spending on our products and services which may adversely affect our revenue. In addition, our corporate headquarters are located in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, a region known for seismic activity. A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, could have a material adverse impact on our business operations, target markets, operating results, and financial condition.