NetApp 10-K 2018-04-27

Filed 2018-06-19. 21 sections, 410K characters. Original on sec.gov · Markdown · JSON

What changed since the 2017-04-28 10-KNew, removed and reworded risk factor headings, then every item sentence by sentence.

Cover and table of contents

10-K 1 ntap-10k_20180427.htm 10-K

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

(Mark One)

☑ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended April 27, 2018

or

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from to

Commission File Number 000-27130

NetApp, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware77-0307520
(State or other jurisdiction of(I.R.S. Employer
incorporation or organization)Identification No.)

1395 Crossman Avenue,

Sunnyvale, California 94089

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

(408) 822-6000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each className of exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $0.001 Par ValueThe NASDAQ Stock Market LLC

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☑

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by a check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Large accelerated filer☑Accelerated filer☐
Non-accelerated filer☐(Do not check if a smaller reporting company)Smaller reporting company☐
Emerging growth company☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☑

The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant, as of October 27, 2017, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $8,052,133,635 (based on the closing price for shares of the registrant’s common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Select Market on that date). Shares of common stock held by each executive officer, director, and holder of 5% or more of the outstanding common stock have been excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of possible affiliate status is not a conclusive determination for other purposes.

On June 8, 2018, 263,480,598 shares of the registrant’s common stock, $0.001 par value, were outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The information called for by Part III of this Form 10-K is hereby incorporated by reference from the definitive Proxy Statement for our annual meeting of stockholders, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission not later than 120 days after April 27, 2018.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I
Item 1Business6
Item 1ARisk Factors15
Item 1BUnresolved Staff Comments26
Item 2Properties26
Item 3Legal Proceedings26
Item 4Mine Safety Disclosures26
PART II
Item 5Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities27
Item 6Selected Financial Data30
Item 7Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations31
Item 7AQuantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk51
Item 8Financial Statements and Supplementary Data53
Item 9Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure90
Item 9AControls and Procedures90
Item 9BOther Information90
PART III
Item 10Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance91
Item 11Executive Compensation91
Item 12Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters91
Item 13Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence91
Item 14Principal Accounting Fees and Services91
PART IV
Item 15Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules91
Signatures96

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act). Forward-looking statements are all statements (and their underlying assumptions) included in this document that refer, directly or indirectly, to future events or outcomes and, as such, are inherently not factual, but rather reflect only our current projections for the future. Consequently, forward-looking statements usually include words such as “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “predict,” “seek,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “believe,” or similar words, in each case, intended to refer to future events or circumstances. A non-comprehensive list of the topics including forward-looking statements in this document includes:

•our future financial and operating results;
•our strategy;
•our beliefs and objectives for future operations, research and development;
•expectations regarding future product releases, growth and performance;
•political, economic and industry trends;
•expected timing of, customer acceptance of and benefits from, product introductions, developments and enhancements;
•expected benefits from acquisitions, including our acquisition of SolidFire, Inc. and joint ventures, growth opportunities and investments;
•expected outcomes from legal, regulatory and administrative proceedings;
•our competitive position;
•our short-term and long-term cash requirements, including, without limitation, anticipated capital expenditures;
•our anticipated tax rate;
•the repayment of our indebtedness; and
•future uses of our cash, including, without limitation, the continuation of our stock repurchase and cash dividend programs.

All forward-looking statements included in this document are inherently uncertain as they are based on management’s current expectations and assumptions concerning future events, and are subject to numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Therefore, actual events and results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include, but are not limited to:

•the overall growth, structure and changes in the networked storage hardware market;
•our ability to expand our total available market and grow our portfolio of products;
•our ability to introduce new and differentiated products and services without disruption;
•our ability to successfully execute new business models;
•general global political, macroeconomic and market conditions;
•our ability to accurately forecast demand for our products and services, and future financial performance;
•our ability to successfully manage our backlog;
•our ability to successfully execute on our Data Fabric strategy to generate profitable growth and stockholder return;
•disruptions in our supply chain, which could limit our ability to ship products to our customers in the amounts and at the prices forecasted;
•our ability to maintain our customer, partner, supplier and contract manufacturer relationships on favorable terms and conditions;
•our ability to maintain our gross profit margins;
•our ability to timely and successfully introduce and increase volumes of new products and services and to forecast demand and pricing for the same;
•changes in U.S. government spending;
•the actions of our competitors including, without limitation, their ability to introduce competitive products and to acquire businesses and technologies that negatively impact our strategy, operations or customer demand for our products;
•the impact of industry consolidation affecting our suppliers, competitors, partners and customers;
•our ability to grow direct and indirect sales and to efficiently provide global service and support;
•our ability to design, manufacture and market products meeting global environmental standards;
•failure of our products and services to meet our customers’ quality requirements, including, without limitation, any epidemic failure event relating to our systems installed by our customers in their IT infrastructures;
•our ability to resolve ongoing litigation, tax audits, government audits, inquiries and investigations in line with our expectations;
•the availability of acceptable financing to support our future cash requirements;
•our ability to effectively integrate acquired businesses, products and technologies;
•valuation and liquidity of our investment portfolio;
•foreign exchange rate impacts;
•our ability to successfully recruit and retain critical employees and to manage our investment in people, process and systems;
•our ability to anticipate techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems and to implement adequate preventative measures against cybersecurity and other security breaches; and
•those factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this document and are based upon information available to us at this time. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation to update information in any forward-looking statement. Actual results could vary from our forward-looking statements due to the foregoing factors as well as other important factors.

PART I

Item 1. Business

Overview

NetApp, Inc. (NetApp, we, or us) is the data authority for the hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data. We were incorporated in 1992 and are headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Customer Business and IT Needs

In a world where technology is changing our everyday lives, digital transformation remains top of mind for executives. When successful in their digital transformation, organizations use technology to create new customer touchpoints, reinventing customer experiences and relationships through business-oriented approaches to data. Additionally, organizations are able to create innovative business opportunities, taking advantage of emerging market opportunities by rapidly deploying new technologies, and to optimize operations, adopting an operating model that provides efficiencies and funds new innovation.

In order to successfully digitally transform, data must become the lifeblood of an organization and be used as a business accelerator. Data-driven digital transformations accelerate business outcomes.

Leaders are under enormous pressure to harness today’s volume of data and apply it to create new value across the entire organization, all with limited time, skills, and budget. Building a data-driven organization is challenging. Data is becoming increasingly:

•Distributed. Generated and consumed from multiple clouds and on-premises, from organic and partner sources
•Dynamic. Constantly changing and increasingly cloud-streamed from multiple clouds
•Diverse. Including analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning capabilities from multiple clouds and on-premises

Thriving in this environment requires a holistic approach to data insight, access and control that is secure, efficient, and future-proof and provides freedom of choice.

To help our customers and partners manage and share their data across on-premises, and private and public clouds, we are:

•Focusing on the customer by delivering an exceptional customer experience and becoming their preferred data partner, and
•Extending our cloud integration and hybrid cloud leadership through the NetApp Data Fabric and expanding our consumption model offerings to match customer needs across cloud and on-premises offerings.

The NetApp Data Fabric

NetApp delivers a Data Fabric built for the data-driven world. Our Data Fabric simplifies and integrates data management across clouds and on-premises to accelerate digital transformation, enabling our customers to manage, secure, and protect their data at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world. The Data Fabric delivers integrated data management services and applications for data visibility and insights, data access and control, and data protection and security.

The NetApp Data Fabric gives customers freedom of choice, enabling the movement of data between clouds and on-premises as business conditions dictate. Customers can easily incorporate new capabilities—AI, machine learning, blockchain, Internet of Things —from any cloud provider to speed innovation and achieve higher levels of operational efficiency to shift resources from maintenance to digital transformation. Secure by design, the Data Fabric helps customers realize new business opportunities while minimizing risk.

Built for the challenges and opportunities of the data-driven world, NetApp products and solutions are designed for simplicity and optimized to manage, protect and secure data. Because the Data Fabric is open by design, we can constantly fuel innovation and flexibility.

Our products, solutions, and services portfolio focuses on customers’ top IT imperatives as they undertake digital transformations. NetApp’s unique approach to managing data holistically enables organizations to inspire innovation with the cloud, build clouds to accelerate new services, and modernize IT architecture with cloud-connected flash.

Product, Solutions and Services Portfolio

Cloud Data Services

NetApp believes that the hybrid cloud will be the dominant model for enterprise IT. Customers are attracted by the speed and scale benefits of the public cloud but need new data management capabilities to keep control of data as it moves beyond the walls of the enterprise. The NetApp Data Fabric enables our customers to manage, secure, and protect their data from on-premises to public to

hybrid clouds, all at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world. The NetApp Cloud Data Services portfolio is focused on helping customers inspire innovation with public and multicloud solutions, enabling modern data management applications and services.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

The Cloud Volumes ONTAP storage data management service is based on the familiar and reliable ONTAP data management software, bringing data protection and storage efficiency features to cloud-based storage. Cloud Volumes ONTAP allows customers to build an enterprise storage service on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure with the flexibility to pay for only what a customer needs, when it needs it. Whether customers want to move traditional database applications or legacy NAS applications to the cloud, Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides the data access, insights, and control along the way.

NetApp Cloud Sync Data Synchronization

NetApp Cloud Sync Data Synchronization provides secure, fast, and automated data synchronization. Whether organizations need to transfer files between on-premises NFS or CIFS file shares, Amazon S3 object format, another cloud provider object store, or NetApp StorageGRID® Webscale appliances, Cloud Sync Data Synchronization moves the files where they are needed quickly and securely.

NetApp SaaS Backup for Microsoft Office 365

SaaS Backup for Microsoft Office 365 service is a complete software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that enables organizations to protect Office 365 data in the event of accidental deletion, data corruption, or malicious intent. Using SaaS Backup for Microsoft Office 365, customers can back up, find, and recover email, calendars, contacts, tasks, site collections, sites, lists, and file data.

NetApp Cloud Backup

Cloud Backup is NetApp’s solution for backing up and archiving data to the public or private cloud of the customer’s choice. Based on NetApp AltaVault™ technology, Cloud Backup streamlines backups while reducing cloud storage costs. Supporting backup and archive to AWS, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Platform, StorageGRID Webscale, or another cloud, Cloud Backup protects data quickly and securely. Cloud Backup ingests data from the customer’s backup software, deduplicates and compresses the data to save on transmission and cloud storage costs, caches the most recent backups for fast recoveries, and vaults all of the data to the cloud quickly and efficiently.

OnCommand Management Software and Management Integration Tools

The NetApp OnCommand® storage management software portfolio incorporates a broad range of data management tools for NetApp and multivendor storage. These products enable customers to maintain control of their data regardless of where it resides in a hybrid cloud environment, to drive efficiency using software management tools designed to work together, and to gain flexibility.

NetApp OnCommand Insight management software delivers consistent insight across the data center, so organizations can monitor, manage, and optimize hybrid IT multivendor storage, compute, and switching infrastructures.

NetApp Private Storage for Cloud

NetApp Private Storage for Cloud is a family of enterprise storage solutions that lets customers use multiple industry-leading clouds and maintain complete control over their data on dedicated storage systems from NetApp while achieving the flexibility of the cloud for application and compute resources. In this approach, customer data resides on NetApp storage “next to” rather than “in” the cloud provider’s environment. The customer-owned NetApp system is co-located in data centers managed by our partner Equinix, which has data centers located next to major networks and in close proximity to major cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and IBM SoftLayer.

Cloud Infrastructure

NetApp Cloud Infrastructure is a portfolio of offerings that helps customers build cloud-architected data centers to deliver cloud services for innovative applications in either private or service provider models. To accelerate digital transformations, customers are building clouds to accelerate new services and developing innovative, cloud-architected infrastructures that manage data and services as one integrated resource, supporting both public and private clouds.

FlexPod

Backed by one of the most successful alliances in the industry, FlexPod® has become the converged infrastructure of choice for many of the largest enterprises around the globe. FlexPod is a portfolio of pre-validated designs and integration that combine the

Cisco Unified Computing System integrated infrastructure and NetApp storage components to reduce risk and accelerate the deployment of data center infrastructure. Today, customers and partners can choose from more than 100 validated application and infrastructure designs. The portfolio is validated with leading hypervisors, operating systems, systems management tools, and cloud management platforms for major enterprise workloads such as Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Openstack, and Docker.

NetApp Converged Systems Advisor

NetApp Converged Systems Advisor (CSA) targets key challenges in the data center operations lifecycle. An on-premises agent combines with cloud analytics to validate, monitor, and optimize the deployment of FlexPod infrastructure. This tool simplifies key tasks for administrative support with an automated review of over 100 best practices, component support updates, and resilient design requirements. With continual remote monitoring and notifications, NetApp CSA helps administrators prevent gaps in system supportability and more easily protect their investment in mission-critical data center infrastructure. These capabilities simplify lifecycle management, improve productivity with infrastructure support, and facilitate the management of infrastructure.

NetApp HCI

The NetApp HCI enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure is the cornerstone of a private cloud strategy solution capable of transforming and empowering organizations so they can move faster, drive operational efficiency, and reduce costs. It can easily run multiple applications with the predictable performance demanded by enterprise customers. Compute and storage resources scale independently to avoid overprovisioning and can be deployed in minutes with a turnkey cloud infrastructure that eliminates the complex management of traditional three-tier architectures.

NetApp StorageGRID Webscale Object Storage Software

NetApp StorageGRID Webscale is a software-defined object-based storage solution that provides intelligent policy-driven data management. StorageGRID Webscale provides Amazon S3 API compatibility and acts as the foundation for global data availability anytime, anywhere to facilitate nonstop operations. Configurations can be designed for resilience to one or multiple simultaneous failures and even for resilience to entire site losses and regional disasters. StorageGRID Webscale is suitable for single data centers or multi–data center deployments with many sites across the globe.

Storage Systems and Software

Our storage systems and software portfolio enables customers to modernize their IT architectures with cloud-connected flash to free the resources necessary to fund transformation by deploying highly efficient flash storage that scales from the edge to the core to the cloud.

All-Flash Arrays

Flash plays a key role in customers’ digital transformation efforts as they seek to gain advantage through greater speed, responsiveness, and value from key business applications, all while lowering total cost of ownership. All-flash array technology is the de facto choice as customers seek performance and economic benefits from replacing hard disk installations. With a highly differentiated and broad portfolio of all-flash and hybrid array offerings, NetApp is well positioned to enable customers to accomplish this transition.

NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) systems address enterprise storage requirements with high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management. Built on ONTAP data management software, AFF systems speed up business without compromising on the efficiency, reliability, or flexibility of IT operations. As an enterprise-grade all-flash array, it accelerates, manages, and protects business-critical data and enables an easy and risk-free transition to flash. Designed specifically for flash, the AFF A-Series all-flash systems deliver industry-leading performance, capacity density, scalability, security, and network connectivity in dense form factors. With the addition of a new entry-level system, the new AFF A-Series family extends enterprise-grade flash to midsize businesses and to fit any budget.

SolidFire® all-flash arrays are architected from the ground up to be the storage foundation of next-generation data centers with scale-out highly available, easy-to-control all-flash storage with guaranteed performance. NetApp SolidFire enables customers to reduce cost and complexity by safely consolidating mission-critical applications onto a single storage platform, increase productivity with deep infrastructure integrations, and dynamically scale storage resources to meet business demands.

NetApp EF-Series all-flash arrays deliver fast, consistent response times to accelerate high-performance databases and data analytics. Designed specifically for mixed-workload environments, including big data analytics, technical computing, video surveillance, and backup and recovery, the EF-Series provides leading price/performance, configuration flexibility, and simplicity in a compact package to help organizations make decisions faster, more actionable, and more secure.

With our all-flash array portfolio, NetApp is enabling customers to modernize IT architecture with cloud-connected flash and free the resources necessary to fund transformation by deploying the industry’s leading flash storage solution, which scales from the edge to the core to the cloud.

Hybrid Flash Arrays

NetApp hybrid flash storage serves customers who want the option to deploy the speed of flash storage where they need it while using more affordable hard disk drives (HDDs) to address capacity requirements. NetApp FAS hybrid flash arrays are created for shared, consolidated environments running SAN and NAS workloads that require rich data management, enterprise-grade capabilities, and easy cloud connection. NetApp E-Series hybrid flash arrays are built for dedicated, high-bandwidth applications such as data analytics, video surveillance, and disk-based backup that need simple, fast, reliable SAN storage.

NetApp ONTAP Storage Operating System

ONTAP 9 is the next generation of the industry’s leading enterprise data management software. It combines new levels of simplicity and flexibility with powerful data management capabilities and storage efficiencies. With ONTAP 9, customers can build a hybrid cloud that is the foundation of a Data Fabric. ONTAP 9 provides flexibility to design and deploy a storage environment across the widest range of architectures—engineered systems, software-defined storage (SDS), and the cloud—spanning flash and disk infrastructures. AFF systems running ONTAP 9 are optimized specifically for flash. ONTAP 9 also enables FAS hybrid storage systems to deliver flash-accelerated performance that is balanced with HDD economies.

NetApp ONTAP Select

NetApp ONTAP Select offers robust enterprise storage services that are deployed on the customer’s choice of commodity hardware. It combines the best of the cloud, in terms of agility and granular capacity scaling, with the flexibility, resilience, and locality of on-premises storage.

NetApp FlexArray Storage Virtualization Software

NetApp FlexArray® virtualization software enables FAS8000 systems to virtualize existing Dell/EMC, HP, Hitachi, and NetApp E-Series arrays, creating a single storage management architecture that overcomes the limitations of existing arrays, expands the capabilities of customers’ IT infrastructures, and delivers the benefits of software-defined storage.

NetApp SnapCenter Backup Management Software

NetApp SnapCenter® software is a unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows. Leveraging storage-based data management, SnapCenter enables increased performance and availability and reduced testing and development times.

NetApp SnapMirror Data Replication Software

NetApp SnapMirror® software is a cost-effective, easy-to-use unified replication solution across the Data Fabric, replicating data at high speeds over LAN or WAN. SnapMirror delivers powerful data management capabilities for virtualization, protecting critical data while providing the flexibility to move data between locations and storage tiers, including cloud service providers.

NetApp MetroCluster Business Continuity Software

NetApp MetroCluster™ software is a solution that combines array-based clustering with synchronous replication to deliver continuous availability and zero data loss. MetroCluster enhances the built-in high availability and nondisruptive operations of NetApp hardware and ONTAP storage software, providing an additional layer of protection for the entire storage and host environment.

NetApp SnapLock Data Compliance Software

NetApp SnapLock® software delivers high-performance disk-based data permanence for HDD and solid-state disk (SSD) deployments. Part of our proven NetApp ONTAP storage software, SnapLock helps provide data integrity and retention, enabling electronic records to be both unalterable and rapidly accessible.

SANtricity Storage Operating System

The SANtricity® operating system performs management tasks while the storage remains online, with complete read and write data access. This capability enables storage administrators to make configuration changes, perform maintenance, or expand storage capacity without disrupting I/O to attached hosts. For application environments, including backup and recovery, technical computing, video surveillance, and big data analytics, NetApp E-Series and EF-Series storage arrays with SANtricity software offer industry-leading performance, reliability, and ease of use.

NetApp SolidFire Element Operating System

NetApp SolidFire Element® OS is the storage operating system for the next-generation data center, providing all the features demanded from primary storage, including enterprise-grade reliability, all-flash performance, and secure multitenancy, in an innovative, automated architecture that delivers on-demand scalability, with guaranteed predictable storage performance. With Element OS, SolidFire systems can host a broad range of performance-sensitive and business-critical applications.

Professional and Support Services

NetApp and our ecosystem of partners deliver a full portfolio of professional and technical services that enable customers to gain the end-to-end expertise and insight needed to succeed and accelerate digital transformations. Our services experts help organizations create a Data Fabric strategy, aligned to their business strategy, to drive innovation and deliver improved business results across cloud and on-premises environments. We collaborate with our customers to accelerate digital transformation with the right expertise to envision, deploy, and operate NetApp data management solutions. NetApp Services experts deliver proactive and predictive intelligence for optimizing the way organizations manage their solutions throughout the data lifecycle.

Our professional services team and certified services partners deliver the expertise needed to accelerate transformations and realize greater business value from technology investments. NetApp professionals and partners help to determine the right technology roadmap to meet business requirements, so customers can respond rapidly to changing business demands. Our proven methodologies, validated designs, and best practices are geared to ensure desired outcomes.

Operational Support Services ensure our products operate efficiently and benefit from the most up-to-date software to help customers minimize downtime for systems running business-critical applications. Our services organization also delivers actionable intelligence for managing and optimizing data management solutions with proactive and predictive technology.

Active IQ® builds on NetApp AutoSupport® with powerful machine-learning capabilities, artificial intelligence, and more deployment options. Cloud-based analytics provide predictions and recommendations based on peer comparisons and community learning. Active IQ simplifies and automates operations with predictive, self-healing care.

Sales, Principal Markets, and Distribution Channels

We market and sell our products in numerous countries throughout the world. To increase visibility of NetApp in the broader IT segment, we continue to make investments in our multi-year branding and awareness campaigns.

Our diversified customer base spans industry segments and vertical markets such as energy, financial services, government, high technology, internet, life sciences, healthcare services, manufacturing, media, entertainment, animation, video postproduction and telecommunications. NetApp focuses primarily on the data management and storage markets. We design our products to meet the needs of our broad customer base – from large enterprises to midsize customers.

NetApp uses a multichannel distribution strategy. We sell our products and services to end-user business customers and service providers through a direct sales force and an ecosystem of partners. We work with a wide range of partners for our customers, including technology partners, value-added resellers, system integrators, OEMs, service providers and distributors. During fiscal 2018, sales through our indirect channels represented 79% of our net revenues. Our global partner ecosystem is critical to NetApp’s growth and success. We are continually strengthening existing partnerships and investing in new ones to ensure we are meeting the evolving needs of our customers.

As of April 27, 2018, our worldwide sales and marketing functions consisted of approximately 5,100 managers, sales representatives and technical support personnel. We have field sales offices in approximately 47 countries. Sales to customers Arrow Electronics, Inc. and Tech Data Corporation, which are distributors, each accounted for 17% of our net revenues in fiscal 2018. Information about sales to and accounts receivables from our major customers, segment disclosures, foreign operations and net sales attributable to our geographic regions is included in Note 16 – Segment, Geographic, and Significant Customer Information of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

Seasonality

We have historically experienced a decline in revenues in the first quarter of our fiscal year, as the sales organization spends time developing new business after higher close rates in the fourth quarter, and because sales to European customers are historically weaker during the summer months. During the second quarter of our fiscal year, we have historically experienced increased sales, driven by the government sector, concurrent with the end of the U.S. federal government’s fiscal year in September, as well as an increase in business from European markets. We derive a majority of our revenue in any given quarter from orders booked in the same quarter. Bookings and revenues typically follow intra-quarter seasonality patterns weighted toward the back end of the quarter.

Backlog

We manufacture products based on a combination of specific order requirements and forecasts of our customers’ demand. Orders are generally placed by customers on an as-needed basis. A substantial portion of our products is sold on the basis of standard purchase orders that are cancelable prior to shipment without penalty. In certain circumstances, purchase orders are subject to change with respect to quantity of product or timing of delivery resulting from changes in customer requirements. Our business is characterized by seasonal and intra-quarter variability in demand, as well as short lead times and product delivery schedules. Accordingly, backlog at any given time might not be a meaningful indicator of future revenue.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

We have outsourced manufacturing operations to third parties located in Memphis, Tennessee; San Jose, California; San Antonio, Texas; Guadalajara, Mexico; Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands; Komarom and Tiszaujvaros, Hungary; Wuxi and Tianjin, China; Taoyuan City, Taiwan; and Singapore. These operations include materials procurement, commodity management, component engineering, test engineering, manufacturing engineering, product assembly, product assurance, quality control, final test, and global logistics. We rely on a limited number of suppliers for materials, as well as several key subcontractors for the production of certain subassemblies and finished systems. We use multiple vendors and have our products manufactured in a number of locations wherever possible to mitigate our supply chain risk. Our strategy has been to develop close relationships with our suppliers, maximizing the exchange of critical information and facilitating implementation of joint quality programs. We use contract manufacturers for the production of major subassemblies and final system configuration. This manufacturing strategy minimizes capital investments and overhead expenditures while creating flexibility for rapid expansion.

We are certified to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certification standards.

Research and Development

We conduct research and development activities in various locations throughout the world. Total research and development expenses were $783 million, $779 million and $861 million in fiscal 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. These costs consist primarily of personnel and related costs incurred to conduct product development activities. Although we develop many of our products internally, we may acquire technology through business combinations or through licensing from third parties when appropriate. We believe that technical leadership is essential to our success, and we expect to continue to commit substantial resources to research and development.

Competition

We compete with many companies in the markets we serve, including established public companies, newly public companies with a strong flash focus, and new market entrants addressing the growing opportunity for hyper converged systems. Some offer a broad spectrum of IT products and services (full-stack vendors) and others offer a more limited set of storage and data management products or services.

Technology trends – for example, the emergence of hosted (or cloud) storage, SaaS and flash storage – are driving significant changes in storage architectures and solution requirements. Cloud service providers provide customers storage as an operating expense, rather than storage systems capital expenditures, for the customers’ data centers, which competes with more traditional storage offerings. While the short- and long-term impact of these evolving trends cannot be predicted, NetApp is confident that our customers recognize the value in our cloud and Data Fabric strategy. Our strategy includes integrating and building relationships with these new classes of providers, and to date, we have established relationships with more than 300 cloud service providers and hyperscaler providers, including AWS, Google, IBM SoftLayer and Microsoft Azure.

We compete against Dell Technologies/EMC Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Hitachi Vantara, and International Business Machines Corporation, as well as Pure Storage, Nutanix, and other smaller players. Our current and potential competitors may establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties, including some of our partners. It is possible that new competitors or alliances among competitors might emerge and rapidly acquire significant market share.

We consider innovation, cloud integration, and our technology partnerships key to our competitive differentiation. We believe our competitive advantage also includes the nature of the relationships we form with our customers and partners worldwide. We strive to deliver an outstanding experience in every interaction we have with our customers and partners through our product, service, and support offerings, which enable us to provide our customers with a full range of expertise before, during and after their purchase.

Proprietary Rights

NetApp generally relies on patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and contract laws to establish and maintain our proprietary rights in our technology and products. While our intellectual property rights are important to our success, we believe that our business is not materially dependent on any particular patent, trademark, copyright, license or other intellectual property right. We have been granted or own by assignment well over a thousand U.S. patents, hundreds of pending U.S. patent applications, and many

corresponding patents and patent applications in other countries. Our primary trademarks are NetApp and the NetApp design logo, which are registered trademarks in the U.S. and in many other countries. In addition, we have numerous trademarks and trademark registrations in the U.S. and other countries covering our various product names.

We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, resellers, customers, and suppliers. In addition, through various licensing arrangements, we receive certain rights to intellectual property of others. We expect to maintain current licensing arrangements and to secure licensing arrangements in the future, as needed and to the extent available on reasonable terms and conditions, to support continued development and sales of our products and services. Some of these licensing arrangements require or might require royalty payments and other licensing fees. The amount of these payments and fees might depend on various factors, including but not limited to the structure of royalty payments; offsetting considerations, if any; and the degree of use of the licensed technology.

The industry in which we compete is characterized by rapidly changing technology, a large number of patents, and frequent claims and related litigation regarding intellectual property rights, and we may be exposed to various risks related to such claims or legal proceedings. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, we might be subject to increased competition that could materially and adversely affect our operating results.

Environmental Disclosure

We are committed to the success of our customers and partners, to delivering value to our stockholders, and to positively affecting the communities where our employees work and live. We firmly believe that we can accomplish these objectives concurrently with our commitment to sustainability. We are committed to the prevention of pollution; efficient use of natural resources; and minimizing, relative to the growth of the company, the environmental impacts from our operations, products, and services, as well as complying with laws and regulations related to these areas. Our environmental management system provides the framework for setting, monitoring, and continuously improving our environmental goals and objectives.

We are voluntarily measuring, monitoring, and publicly reporting our scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions and participate in the CDP, which is a global standardized mechanism by which companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to institutional investors. We promote alternative transportation programs through education and awareness campaigns, and we continuously seek to optimize the energy efficiency of our buildings, labs, and data centers. At both the global and regional/state levels, various laws and regulations have been implemented or are under consideration to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental laws are complex, change frequently, and have tended to become more stringent over time. It is often difficult to estimate the future impact of environmental matters. Based on current information, we believe that our primary risk related to climate change is the risk of increased energy costs. We are not subject to a cap and trade system or any other mitigation measures that could be material to our operations in the near future. Additionally, we have implemented disaster recovery and business resiliency measures to mitigate the physical risks our facilities, business, and supply chain might face as a consequence of severe weather-/climate-related phenomena such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, and other such natural occurrences.

We are also subject to other federal, state, and local regulations regarding workplace safety and protection of the environment. Various international, federal, state, and local provisions regulate the use and discharge of certain hazardous materials used in the manufacture of our products. Failure to comply with environmental regulations in the future could cause us to incur substantial costs or subject us to business interruptions. We believe we are substantially compliant with all applicable environmental laws. All of our products meet the requirements of the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH); Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE); Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS); and China RoHS directives. We have maintained an environmental management system since December 2004. As part of ISO 14001 requirements, we set local environmental performance goals such as reducing energy use per square foot and minimizing waste generated on site, that are aligned with our overall corporate strategy. We also conduct periodic reviews and are subject to third-party audits of our operations, and we monitor environmental legislation and requirements to help make sure we are taking necessary measures to remain in compliance with applicable laws, not only in our operations but also for our products.

Employees

As of April 27, 2018, we had approximately 10,300 employees worldwide. None of our employees are represented by a labor union and we consider relations with our employees to be good. Competition for technical personnel in the industry in which we compete is intense. We believe that our future success depends in part on our continued ability to hire, assimilate, and retain qualified personnel. To date, we believe that we have been successful in recruiting qualified employees, but there is no assurance that we will continue to be successful in the future.

Executive Officers

Our executive officers and their ages as of June 1, 2018, are as follows:

NameAgePosition
George Kurian51Chief Executive Officer and President
Ronald J. Pasek57Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Henri Richard60Executive Vice President, Worldwide Field and Customer Operations
Joel D. Reich59Executive Vice President and General Manager, NetApp Storage Systems and Software Business Unit
Matthew K. Fawcett50Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

George Kurian was appointed chief executive officer on June 1, 2015 and president on May 20, 2016. He joined our board of directors in June 2015. From September 2013 to May 2015, he was executive vice president of product operations, overseeing all aspects of technology strategy, product and solutions development across our product portfolio. Mr. Kurian joined NetApp in April 2011 as the senior vice president of the storage solutions group and was appointed to senior vice president of the Data ONTAP group in December 2011. Prior to NetApp, from 2002 to 2011, Mr. Kurian held several positions at Cisco Systems, including most recently vice president and general manager of the application networking and switching technology group. From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Kurian was the vice president of product management and strategy at Akamai Technologies. Prior to that, he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, and led software engineering and product management teams at Oracle Corporation. Mr. Kurian holds a BS degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA degree from Stanford University.

Ronald J. Pasek joined NetApp in April 2016 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, overseeing the finance, customer leasing, workplace resources, internal audit, and IT functions. Mr. Pasek served as senior vice president, finance and chief financial officer of Altera Corporation, a worldwide provider of programmable logic devices, from December 2009 until its acquisition by Intel in December 2015. Mr. Pasek was previously employed by Sun Microsystems, where he most recently served as vice president and corporate treasurer. In his 19 years at Sun Microsystems, he also held a variety of other positions in finance, including vice president of worldwide field finance, worldwide manufacturing, and U.S. field finance. Mr. Pasek is the chairman of the board of directors of Spectra7 Microsystems Inc., a Canadian publicly traded consumer connectivity company. Mr. Pasek holds a BS degree from San Jose State University and an MBA degree from Santa Clara University.

Henri Richard joined NetApp in May 2016 as executive vice president of worldwide field and customer operations, leading NetApp’s global field and customer success operations, which support the company’s ecosystem of channel, alliance, and service partners and perform customer-facing functions. Before joining NetApp, from April 2013 to May 2016, he was senior vice president of worldwide sales and support at SanDisk Corporation. Prior to SanDisk, Mr. Richard served as senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Freescale Semiconductor from September 2007 to April 2013. Mr. Richard brings 30-years of experience serving in global executive roles at companies including Seagate, IBM, WebGain and AMD. He started his career in IT with Informatique Haute Performance in Paris, France, a company he founded. Mr. Richard was a member of the board of directors of Ultratech Inc., a formerly publicly traded advance packaging and laser processing company, until its acquisition by Veeco Instruments, Inc. in May 2017. Mr. Richard holds a bachelor of science degree from the Ecole Nationale de Radiotechnique et d’Electronique Appliquee in Asnieres, France.

Joel D. Reich joined NetApp in 2002 and was appointed executive vice president of product operations in June 2015. He is currently executive vice president and general manager of the NetApp Storage Systems and Software business unit. He is responsible for overseeing the strategy and development of the NetApp product and solutions portfolio. He is responsible for overseeing the strategy, development and manufacturing operations of the NetApp product and solutions portfolio. From April 2011 to June 2015, Mr. Reich served as NetApp’s senior vice president of the Hyperscale Storage Group. Before that time, he served in various NetApp Data ONTAP engineering leadership roles. Before joining NetApp, he was vice president of marketing and product operations for HighGround Systems, Inc. He also held the position of director of product management at Data General Corporation and EMC Corporation and was director of sales and marketing for Conner Peripherals Storage Systems Group. Mr. Reich holds a bachelor’s degree from Lehigh University.

Matthew K. Fawcett joined the company in September 2010 as senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary. Prior to joining NetApp, from 1999 to August 2010, Mr. Fawcett served in various legal positions at JDS Uniphase Corporation, an optical components company, including as senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary. Prior to joining JDSU, Mr. Fawcett was counsel at Fujitsu and worked in private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP. Mr. Fawcett is a member of the boards of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Mr. Fawcett holds a BA degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a JD degree from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Additional Information

Our internet address is www.netapp.com. We make available through our internet website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, amendments to those reports and other documents filed or furnished pursuant to the Exchange Act of 1934, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such materials with, or furnish them to, the SEC.

The SEC maintains an internet site (www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The public also may read and copy these filings at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street N.E., Washington, DC 20549. Information about this Public Reference Room is available by calling (800) SEC-0330.

Item 1A. Risk Factors

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The information included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K should be considered and understood in the context of the following risk factors, which describe circumstances that may materially harm our future business, operating results or financial condition. The following discussion reflects our current judgment regarding the most significant risks we face. These risks can and will change in the future.

Our business may be harmed by trends in the networked storage hardware market or if we are unable to keep pace with rapid industry, technological and market changes.

Our industry and the markets in which we compete have historically experienced significant growth due to the increase in the demand for storage and data management solutions by consumers, enterprises and government bodies around the world, and the resultant purchases of storage and data management solutions to address this demand. However, despite continued data growth, the networked storage hardware market experienced a decline in each of the last three calendar years due to a combination of customers delaying purchases in the face of technology transitions, increasing adoption of Cloud environments built on commodity hardware, increased storage efficiency, and changing economic and business environments. While customers are navigating through their IT transformations, which leverage modern architectures and hybrid cloud environments, they are also reducing IT budgets, looking for simpler solutions, and rethinking how they consume IT. This evolution is diverting spending towards transformational projects and architectures like flash, hybrid cloud, IT as a service, converged infrastructure, and software defined storage. Our business may be adversely impacted if we are unable to keep pace with rapid industry, technological or market changes or if our Data Fabric strategy is not accepted in the marketplace. As a result of these and other factors discussed in the report, our revenue may decline as it did in fiscal years 2015, 2016 and 2017, on a year-over year basis. The future impact of these trends on both short-term and long-term growth patterns is uncertain. If the general historical rate of industry growth declines, if the growth rates of the specific markets in which we compete decline, and/or if the consumption model of storage changes and our new and existing products, services and solutions do not receive customer acceptance, our business, operating results and financial condition could suffer.

If we are unable to develop, introduce and gain market acceptance for new products while managing the transition from older products, or if we cannot provide the expected level of quality, service and support for our new products, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.

Our future growth depends upon the successful development and introduction of new hardware and software products and related services. Due to the complexity of storage software, subsystems and appliances and the difficulty in gauging the engineering effort required to produce new products and services, such products and services are subject to significant technical and quality control risks.

If we are unable, for technological, customer reluctance or other reasons, to develop, introduce and gain market acceptance for new products and services, as and when required by the market and our customers, our business, operating results and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

New or additional product introductions, including new hardware and software offerings, such as NetApp HCI, Cloud Volumes ONTAP, and new all flash storage products, subject us to additional financial and operational risks, including our ability to forecast customer preferences and/or demand, our ability to successfully manage the transition from older products and solutions, our ability to forecast the impact of customers’ demand for new products and solutions or the products being replaced, and our ability to manage production capacity to meet the demand for new products. In addition, as new or enhanced products are introduced, we must also avoid excessive levels of older product inventories and related components and ensure that enough supplies of new products can be delivered to meet customers’ demands. Further risks inherent in new product and solutions introductions include the uncertainty of price-performance relative to products of competitors, competitors’ responses to the introductions, delays in sales caused by the desire of customers to evaluate new products for extended periods of time and our partners’ investment in selling our new products and solutions. If these risks are not managed effectively, we could experience material risks to our operations, financial condition and business model.

As we enter new or emerging markets, we will likely increase demands on our service and support operations and may be exposed to additional competition. We may not be able to provide products, service and support to effectively compete for these market opportunities.

Our new consumption based business models may adversely affect our revenues and profitability.

We offer customers a full range of consumption models, including the deployment of our software through our subscription and cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS), and utility pricing and managed services offerings for our hardware and software systems. These business models continue to evolve, and we may not be able to compete effectively, generate significant revenues or maintain the profitability of our consumption based offerings. Additionally, the increasing prevalence of cloud and SaaS delivery models offered by us and our competitors may unfavorably impact the pricing of our on-premise hardware and software offerings and could have a dampening impact on overall demand for our on-premise hardware and software product and service offerings, which could

reduce our revenues and profitability, at least in the near term. If we do not successfully execute our consumption model strategy or anticipate the needs of our customers, our revenues and profitability could decline.

As customer demand for our consumption model offerings increases, we could experience volatility in our reported revenues and operating results due to differences in the timing of revenue recognition between our traditional hardware and software license arrangements, (for which revenue is generally recognized in full at the time of delivery), relative to our consumption model offerings, (for which revenue is generally recognized ratably over the term of the arrangement). We incur certain expenses associated with the infrastructure and marketing of our consumption model offerings in advance of our ability to recognize the revenues associated with these offerings.

Our sales and distribution structure makes forecasting revenues difficult and, if disrupted, could harm our operating results.

Our business and sales models make revenues difficult to forecast. We sell to a variety of customers directly and through various channels, with a corresponding variety of sales cycles, and we recently reorganized our sales resources to improve the alignment of those resources with customer and market opportunities. The reorganization of our sales resources could result in short or long-term disruption of our sales cycles and harm our operating results. The majority of our sales are made and/or fulfilled indirectly through channel partners, including value-added resellers, systems integrators, distributors, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and strategic business partners, which now include hyperscalers. This structure significantly complicates our ability to forecast future revenue, especially within any particular fiscal quarter or year. Moreover, our relationships with our indirect channel partners and strategic business partners are critical to ou

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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

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Not applicable.

Item 2. Properties

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We own approximately 0.7 million square feet of facilities at our Sunnyvale, California headquarters. The Sunnyvale site supports research and development, corporate general administration, sales and marketing, global services and operations.

We own approximately 0.8 million square feet of facilities in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. In addition, we own 65 acres of undeveloped land. The RTP site supports research and development, global services and sales and marketing.

We own forty acres of land and approximately 0.3 million square feet of facilities in Wichita, Kansas. This site supports sales and marketing, research and development, and global services.

We own approximately 0.7 million square feet of facilities in Bangalore, India. The Bangalore site supports research and development, marketing and global services.

We lease other sales offices and research and development facilities throughout the U.S. and internationally. We expect that our existing facilities and those being developed worldwide are suitable and adequate for our requirements over at least the next two years and that additional space will be available as needed.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

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For a discussion of legal proceedings, see Note 18 – Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

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Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

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The Company’s common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market LLC (“NASDAQ”) under the symbol NTAP.

Price Range of Common Stock

The price range per share of common stock presented below represents the highest and lowest intraday sales prices for the Company’s common stock on the NASDAQ during each quarter of our two most recent fiscal years.

Fiscal 2018Fiscal 2017
HighLowHighLow
First Quarter$45.24$37.43$26.95$22.50
Second Quarter$45.14$37.55$36.10$25.82
Third Quarter$64.06$43.24$39.00$30.36
Fourth Quarter$69.75$52.00$43.14$37.48

Holders

As of June 8, 2018 there were 431 holders of record of our common stock.

Dividends

The Company paid cash dividends of $0.20 per outstanding common share in each quarter of fiscal 2018 for an aggregate of $214 million, $0.19 per outstanding common share in each quarter of fiscal 2017 for an aggregate of $208 million, and $0.18 per outstanding common share in each quarter of fiscal 2016 for an aggregate of $210 million. In the first quarter of fiscal 2019, the Company declared a cash dividend of $0.40 per share of common stock, payable on July 25, 2018 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on July 6, 2018.

Performance Graph

The following graph shows a comparison of cumulative total shareholder return, calculated on a dividend reinvested basis, of an investment of $100 for the Company, the S&P 500 Index, the S&P Information Technology Index and the S&P 1500 Technology Hardware & Equipment Index for the five years ended April 27, 2018. The comparisons in the graphs below are based upon historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our common stock. The graph and related information shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or be deemed to be “filed” with the SEC, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any past or future filing with the SEC, except to the extent that such filing specifically states that such graph and related information are incorporated by reference into such filing.

COMPARISON OF FIVE YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN

Among NetApp, Inc., the S&P 500 Index, the S&P Information Technology Index and the S&P 1500 Technology Hardware & Equipment Index*

*$100 invested on April 26, 2013 in stock or index, including reinvestment of dividends. Data points are the last day of each fiscal year for the Company’s common stock and each of the indexes.

April 2013April 2014April 2015April 2016April 2017April 2018
NetApp, Inc.$100.00$101.92$107.07$71.89$123.99$213.12
S&P 500 Index$100.00$120.27$139.48$139.05$163.96$187.24
S&P 500 Information Technology Index$100.00$125.84$157.09$154.56$209.21$262.10
S&P 1500 Technology Hardware & Equipment Index$100.00$134.47$175.66$141.56$209.67$244.12

We believe that a number of factors may cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate significantly. See Item 1A. – Risk Factors.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers

The following table provides information with respect to the shares of common stock repurchased by us during the three months ended April 27, 2018:

Total Number of SharesApproximate Dollar Value
Total NumberAveragePurchased as Part ofof Shares That May Yet
of SharesPrice PaidPublicly AnnouncedBe Purchased Under The
PeriodPurchasedper ShareProgramRepurchase Program
(Shares in thousands)(Shares in thousands)(Dollars in millions)
January 27, 2018 - February 23, 20181,752$58.13280,330$242
February 24, 2018 - March 23, 20183,765$61.52284,095$10
March 24, 2018 - April 27, 2018173$60.38284,268$4,000
Total5,690$60.44

In May 2003, our Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase program. As of April 27, 2018, our Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $13.6 billion of our common stock, including a $4.0 billion increase approved by our Board of Directors in April 2018. Since inception of the program through April 27, 2018, we repurchased a total of 284 million shares of our common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $9.6 billion. Under this program, we may purchase shares of our outstanding common stock through solicited or unsolicited transactions in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions, through accelerated share repurchase programs, pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan or in such other manner as deemed appropriate by our management. The stock repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued at any time.

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

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The following selected consolidated financial data set forth below was derived from our historical audited consolidated financial statements and should be read in conjunction with Item 7 – Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and Item 8 – Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, and other financial data included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our historical results of operations are not indicative of our future results of operations.

Fiscal Year Ended
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017April 29, 2016April 24, 2015April 25, 2014
(In millions, except per share amounts)
Net revenues$5,911$5,519$5,546$6,123$6,325
Gross profit$3,699$3,390$3,373$3,833$3,919
Provision for income taxes (1)$1,090$156$116$153$103
Net income$76$509$229$560$638
Net income per share, basic$0.28$1.85$0.78$1.77$1.87
Net income per share, diluted$0.28$1.81$0.77$1.75$1.83
Shares used in basic computation268275294316340
Shares used in diluted computation276281297321348
Cash dividends declared per share$0.80$0.76$0.72$0.66$0.60
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017April 29, 2016April 24, 2015April 25, 2014
(In millions)
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments$5,391$4,921$5,303$5,326$5,003
Working capital$3,233$2,076$2,786$4,064$3,776
Total assets$9,865$9,493$10,037$9,401$9,214
Total debt$1,926$1,993$2,339$1,487$990
Total deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue$3,477$3,342$3,385$3,197$3,100
Total stockholders' equity$2,067$2,780$2,881$3,414$3,787

(1) In fiscal 2018, our provision for income taxes included significant charges attributable to United States tax reform.

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

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The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with the financial statements and the accompanying notes set forth under Item 8. – Financial Statements and Supplementary Data. The following discussion also contains trend information and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The Risk Factors set forth in Item 1A. – Risk Factors are hereby incorporated into the discussion by reference.

Executive Overview

Our Company

We are the data authority for the hybrid cloud. Digital transformation remains top of mind for executives. In order to successfully digitally transform, data must become the lifeblood of an organization and be used as a business accelerator. Data-driven digital transformations accelerate business outcomes. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to enable new customer touchpoints, create innovative business opportunities and optimize operations.

NetApp delivers a Data Fabric built for the data-driven world. Our Data Fabric simplifies and integrates data management across clouds and on-premises to accelerate digital transformation, enabling our customers to manage, secure and protect their data at the scale needed to accommodate the exponential data growth of the digital world. It delivers integrated data management services and applications for data visibility and insights, data access and control, and data protection and security.

We focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience to become our customers’ preferred data partner. NetApp’s unique approach to managing data holistically enables organizations to inspire innovation with the cloud, build clouds to accelerate new services, and modernize IT architecture with cloud-connected flash.

With NetApp products and solutions, customers can:

•Continually fuel business growth by delivering data-rich customer experiences through new application deployments that easily use data and services regardless of where they reside or in what form.
•Accelerate digital transformation by developing a next-generation, cloud-architected infrastructure that manages data and services as one integrated resource supporting both public and private clouds.
•Free the resources necessary to fund transformation by deploying the industry’s leading flash storage solution, which is highly efficient and scales from the edge to the core to the cloud.

Customers are attracted by the speed and scale benefits of the public cloud but need new data management capabilities to keep control of data as it moves beyond the walls of the enterprise. NetApp believes the hybrid cloud is fast becoming the dominant model for enterprise IT. Whether an organization is targeting an all-cloud, hybrid cloud, or multi-cloud strategy, NetApp Cloud Data Services accelerate the time it takes to deploy or develop an application by making the data requirements seamless to the application layer.

Budget constraints and skill imbalances lead our customers to seek help in integrating, deploying and managing the solutions they need to stay competitive. This drives demand for converged and hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. FlexPod is the converged infrastructure of choice for many of the largest enterprises around the globe. Customers can break free from the limits of first-generation HCI with NetApp HCI and attain guaranteed performance with high levels flexibility, scale, automation, and integration with the Data Fabric.

Flash plays a key role in customers’ digital transformation efforts as they seek to gain advantage through greater speed, responsiveness and value from key business applications - all while lowering total cost of ownership. All-flash array technology is the de facto choice for primary application workloads as customers seek performance and economic benefits from replacing hard disk installations. With a highly differentiated and broad portfolio of all-flash and hybrid array offerings, NetApp is well positioned to enable customers to accomplish this transition.

To provide visibility into our transition from older products to our newer, higher growth products and clarity into the dynamics of our product revenue, we group our products by “Strategic” and “Mature” solutions. Strategic solutions include Clustered ONTAP, branded E-Series, SolidFire, converged and hyper-converged infrastructure, and optional add-on software products. Mature solutions include 7-mode ONTAP, add-on hardware and related operating system (OS) software and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) products. Both our Mature and Strategic product lines include a mix of disk, hybrid and all flash storage media.

Additionally, we provide a variety of services including software maintenance, hardware maintenance and other services including professional services, global support solutions, and customer education and training to help customers most effectively manage their data. Revenues generated by our Cloud Data Services offerings are included in software maintenance revenues.

Financial Results and Key Performance Metrics Overview

The following table provides an overview of some of our key financial metrics for each of the last three fiscal years (in millions, except per share amounts, percentages and cash conversion cycle):

Year Ended
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017April 29, 2016
Net revenues$5,911$5,519$5,546
Gross profit$3,699$3,390$3,373
Gross profit margin percentage63%61%61%
Income from operations$1,125$665$348
Income from operations as a percentage of net revenues19%12%6%
Provision for income taxes$1,090$156$116
Net income$76$509$229
Diluted net income per share$0.28$1.81$0.77
Operating cash flows$1,478$986$974
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017
Deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue$3,477$3,342
Cash conversion cycle(15)15
•Net revenues: Our net revenues increased 7% in fiscal 2018 compared to fiscal 2017. This was primarily due to an increase of 15% in product revenues, partially offset by a 3% decrease in software and hardware maintenance and other services revenues.
•Gross profit margin percentage: Our gross profit margin as a percentage of net revenues increased by one percentage point in fiscal 2018 compared to fiscal 2017, reflecting an increase in gross profit margin on product revenues, and, to a lesser extent, an increase in gross profit margin on hardware maintenance and other services revenues.
•Income from operations as a percentage of net revenues: Our income from operations as a percentage of net revenues increased in fiscal 2018 compared to fiscal 2017 primarily due to higher product gross margin and lower operating expenses as a result of a gain on sale of certain of our properties.
•Provision for income taxes: Our provision for income taxes increased significantly in fiscal 2018 compared to fiscal 2017 as a result of significant charges recorded in connection with U.S. tax reform enacted in fiscal 2018.

| | • | Net income and Diluted income per share: The 85% decrease in both

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Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

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We are exposed to market risk related to fluctuations in interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates. We use certain derivative financial instruments to manage foreign currency exchange risks. We do not use derivative financial instruments for speculative or trading purposes. All financial instruments are used in accordance with management-approved policies.

Interest Rate Risk

Fixed Income Investments — As of April 27, 2018, we had fixed income debt investments of $2.7 billion. Our investment portfolio primarily consists of investments with original maturities greater than three months at the date of purchase, which are classified as available-for-sale investments. These investments, which consist primarily of corporate bonds, U.S. Treasury and government debt securities, commercial paper, and certificates of deposit, are subject to interest rate and interest income risk and will decrease in value if market interest rates increase. Conversely, declines in interest rates, including the impact from lower credit spreads, could have a material adverse impact on interest income for our investment portfolio. A hypothetical 100 basis point increase in market interest rates from levels as of April 27, 2018 would have resulted in a decrease in the fair value of our fixed-income securities of approximately $57 million. Volatility in market interest rates over time will cause variability in our interest income. We do not use derivative financial instruments in our investment portfolio.

Our investment policy is to limit credit exposure through diversification and investment in highly rated securities. We further mitigate concentrations of credit risk in our investments by limiting our investments in the debt securities of a single issuer and by diversifying risk across geographies and type of issuer. We actively review, along with our investment advisors, current investment ratings, company-specific events and general economic conditions in managing our investments and in determining whether there is a significant decline in fair value that is other-than-temporary. We monitor and evaluate our investment portfolio on a quarterly basis for any other-than-temporary impairments.

Debt — As of April 27, 2018, we have outstanding $1.6 billion aggregate principal amount of Senior Notes. We carry these instruments at face value less unamortized discount on our consolidated balance sheets. Since these instruments bear interest at fixed rates, we have no financial statement risk associated with changes in interest rates. However, the fair value of these instruments

fluctuates when interest rates change. See Note 10 – Financing Arrangements of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for more information.

Credit Facility — We are exposed to the impact of changes in interest rates in connection with our $1.0 billion five-year revolving credit facility. Borrowings under the facility accrue interest at rates that vary based on certain market rates and our credit rating on our Senior Notes. Consequently, our interest expense would fluctuate with any changes in these market interest rates or in our credit rating if we were to borrow any amounts under the credit facility. As of April 27, 2018, no amounts were outstanding under the credit facility.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

We hedge risks associated with certain foreign currency transactions to minimize the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates on earnings. We utilize foreign currency exchange forward and option contracts to hedge against the short-term impact of foreign currency fluctuations on certain foreign currency denominated monetary assets and liabilities. Currently, sales transactions and expenditures denominated in foreign currencies are not hedged, and therefore are exposed to the impact of foreign currency fluctuations.

We do not enter into foreign currency exchange contracts for speculative or trading purposes. In entering into foreign currency exchange forward and option contracts, we have assumed the risk that might arise from the possible inability of counterparties to meet the terms of the contracts. We attempt to limit our exposure to credit risk by executing foreign currency exchange contracts with creditworthy multinational commercial banks. All contracts have a maturity of less than six months. See Note 12 – Derivatives and Hedging Activities of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for more information regarding our derivatives and hedging activities.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

| --- | --- |

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Consolidated Balance Sheets as of April 27, 2018 and April 28, 201754
Consolidated Statements of Operations for the years ended April 27, 2018, April 28, 2017 and April 29, 201655
Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income for the years ended April 27, 2018, April 28, 2017 and April 29, 201656
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended April 27, 2018, April 28, 2017 and April 29, 201657
Consolidated Statements of Stockholders’ Equity for the years ended April 27, 2018, April 28, 2017 and April 29, 201658
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements59
Selected Quarterly Financial Data (Unaudited)87
Reports of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm88

NETAPP, INC.

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

April 27, 2018April 28, 2017
(In millions, except par value)
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents$2,941$2,444
Short-term investments2,4502,477
Accounts receivable1,009731
Inventories126163
Other current assets330383
Total current assets6,8566,198
Property and equipment, net756799
Goodwill1,7391,684
Other intangible assets, net94131
Other non-current assets420681
Total assets$9,865$9,493
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable$609$347
Accrued expenses825782
Commercial paper notes385500
Current portion of long-term debt—749
Short-term deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue1,8041,744
Total current liabilities3,6234,122
Long-term debt1,541744
Other long-term liabilities961249
Long-term deferred revenue and financed unearned services revenue1,6731,598
Total liabilities7,7986,713
Commitments and contingencies (Note 18)
Stockholders' equity:
Preferred stock, $0.001 par value, 5 shares authorized; no shares issued or outstanding as of April 27, 2018 or April 28, 2017——
Common stock and additional paid-in capital, $0.001 par value, 885 shares authorized; 263 and 269 shares issued and outstanding as of April 27, 2018 and April 28, 2017, respectively2,3552,769
Retained earnings (accumulated deficit)(218)40
Accumulated other comprehensive loss(70)(29)
Total stockholders' equity2,0672,780
Total liabilities and stockholders' equity$9,865$9,493

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.

NETAPP, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

Year Ended
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017April 29, 2016
(In millions, except per share amounts)
Revenues:
Product$3,461$3,006$2,986
Software maintenance958965949
Hardware maintenance and other services1,4921,5481,611
Net revenues5,9115,5195,546
Cost of revenues:
Cost of product1,7381,6141,558
Cost of software maintenance252837
Cost of hardware maintenance and other services449487578
Total cost of revenues2,2122,1292,173
Gross profit3,6993,3903,373
Operating expenses:
Sales and marketing1,7291,6331,792
Research and development783779861
General and administrative280271307
Restructuring charges—52108
Acquisition-related expense——8
Gain on sale of properties(218)(10)(51)
Total operating expenses2,5742,7253,025
Income from operations1,125665348
Other income (expense), net41—(3)
Income before income taxes1,166665345
Provision for income taxes1,090156116
Net income$76$509$229
Net income per share:
Basic$0.28$1.85$0.78
Diluted$0.28$1.81$0.77
Shares used in net income per share calculations:
Basic268275294
Diluted276281297

See accompanying notes to consolidated financial statements.

NETAPP, INC.

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

.Year Ended
April 27, 2018April 28, 2017April 29, 2016
(In millions)
Net income$76$509$229
Other comprehensive income (loss):
Foreign currency translation adjustments2(10)4
Defined benefit obligations:
Defined benefit obligation adjustments125(7)
Reclassification adjustments related to defined benefit obligations(2)12
Income tax effect1(10)2
Unrealized gains (losses) on available-for-sale securities:
Unrealized holding losses arising during the period(43)(6)(4)
Reclassification adjustments for gains included in net income——(1)
Unrealized gains (losses) on cash flow hedges:
Unrealized holding gains (losses) arising during the period—8(4)
Reclassification adjustments for (gains) losses included in net income—(6)1
Other comprehensive income (loss):(41)

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Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure

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None.

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures

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(a) Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

The phrase “disclosure controls and procedures” refers to controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), such as this Annual Report on Form 10-K, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Disclosure controls and procedures are also designed to ensure that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and our Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our CEO and CFO, we carried out an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures, as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, as of April 27, 2018, the end of the fiscal period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K (the Evaluation Date). Based on this evaluation, our CEO and CFO concluded as of the Evaluation Date that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective such that the information required to be disclosed in our SEC reports (i) is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and (ii) is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our CEO and CFO, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

(b) Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(f). Our internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this assessment, our management concluded that, as of April 27, 2018, our internal control over financial reporting was effective at the reasonable assurance level based on those criteria.

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of April 27, 2018 has been audited by Deloitte & Touche LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report, which is included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

(c) Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There has been no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with our evaluation required by paragraph (d) of rules 13a-15 and 15d-15 under the Exchange Act that occurred during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Item 9B. Other Information

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None.

PART III

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance

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The information required by Item 10 with respect to our executive officers is incorporated herein by reference from the information under Item 1 – Business of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the section entitled “Executive Officers.” The information required by Item 10 with respect to the Company’s directors and corporate governance is incorporated herein by reference from the information provided under the headings “Election of Directors” and “Corporate Governance,” respectively, in the Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days of our year ended April 27, 2018. The information required by Item 405 of Regulation S-K is incorporated herein by reference from the information provided under the heading “Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” in the Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

We have adopted a written code of ethics that applies to our Board of Directors and all of our employees, including our principal executive officer and principal financial and accounting officer. A copy of the code of ethics, which we refer to as our “Code of Conduct,” is available on our website at http://investors.netapp.com/governance.cfm. We will post any amendments to or waivers from the provisions of our Code of Conduct on our website.

Item 11. Executive Compensation

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Information regarding the compensation of executive officers and directors of the Company is incorporated by reference from the information under the headings “Executive Compensation and Related Information” and “Director Compensation,” respectively, in our Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters

| --- | --- |

Information regarding security ownership of certain beneficial owners and management and related stockholder matters is incorporated by reference from the information under the heading “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” in our Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence

| --- | --- |

Information regarding certain relationships and related transactions and director independence is incorporated by reference from the information under the headings “Corporate Governance” and “Certain Transactions with Related Parties” in our Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services

| --- | --- |

The information required by this item is incorporated by reference from the information under the caption “Audit Fees” in our Proxy Statement for the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

With the exception of the information incorporated in Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, NetApp’s Proxy Statement is not deemed “filed” as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

PART IV

Item 15. Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules

| --- | --- |

(a)Documents filed as part of this report
(1)All Financial Statements

See index to Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K

(2)Financial Statement Schedules

All financial statement schedules have been omitted, since the required information is not applicable or is not present in amounts sufficient to require submission of the schedule, or because the information required is included in the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in this Form 10-K.

(3)Exhibits required by Item 601 of Regulation S-K

The information required by this Section (a)(3) of Item 15 is as follows:

EXHIBIT INDEX

Incorporation by Reference
Exhibit NoDescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitFiling Date
3.1Certificate of Incorporation of the Company, as amended.10-Q000-271303.1November 26, 2013
3.2Bylaws of the Company.8-K000-271303.1April 30, 2018
4.1Indenture dated December 12, 2012, by and between the Company and U.S. Bank National Association.8-K000-271304.1December 12, 2012
4.2First Supplemental Indenture dated December 12, 2012, by and between the Company and U.S. Bank National Association.8-K000-271304.2December 12, 2012
4.3Second Supplemental Indenture dated June 5, 2014 by and between the Company and U.S. Bank National Association.8-K000-271304.1June 5, 2014
4.4Third Supplemental Indenture dated September 29, 2017 by and between the Company and U.S. Bank National Association.8-K000-271304.2September 29, 2017
10.1*Form of Indemnification Agreement by and between the Company and each of its directors and executive officers.10-Q000-2713010.1August 28, 2014
10.2*Form of Change of Control Severance Agreement.8-K000-2713010.1June 28, 2016
10.3*The Company’s Amended and Restated Executive Compensation Plan, as amended effective July 23, 2014.DEF 14A000-27130Appendix CJuly 25, 2014
10.4*The Company’s Deferred Compensation Plan.8-K000-271302.1July 7, 2005
10.5*The Company’s Amended and Restated Employee Stock Purchase Plan, as amended effective July 17, 2017.DEF 14A000-27130Appendix BAugust 1, 2017
10.6*The Company’s Amended and Restated 1995 Stock Incentive Plan.DEF 14A000-27130August 21, 1998
10.7*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1995 Stock Option Plan.10-K000-2713010.21July 8, 2005
10.8*Form of Stock Issuance Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1995 Stock Option Plan (Restricted Stock).10-K000-2713010.23July 8, 2005
10.9*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1995 Stock Option Plan (Chairman of the Board or any Board Committee Chairperson).10-K000-2713010.22July 8, 2005
10.10*The Company’s Amended and Restated 1999 Stock Option Plan, as amended effective July 20, 2017.DEF 14A000-27130Appendix AAugust 1, 2017
Incorporation by Reference
Exhibit NoDescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitFiling Date
10.11*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan.10-Q000-2713010.3November 26, 2013
10.12*Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (Employees).10-Q000-2713010.4November 26, 2013
10.13*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (Non-Employee Director Automatic Stock Option — Initial).10-K000-2713010.29July 8, 2005
10.14*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (Non-Employee Director Automatic Stock Option — Annual).10-K000-2713010.28July 8, 2005
10.15*Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (Non-Employees Directors).10-K000-2713010.17June 18, 2010
10.16*Form of Restricted Stock Unit Agreement (Performance Based) under the NetApp, Inc. 1999 Stock Option Plan.8-K000-2713010.1June 26, 2015
10.17*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (China).10-K000-2713010.27July 8, 2005
10.18*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (France).10-K000-2713010.30July 8, 2005
10.19*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (India).10-K000-2713010.31July 8, 2005
10.20*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (United Kingdom).10-K000-2713010.32July 8, 2005
10.21*Form of Stock Option Agreement approved for use under the Company’s amended and restated 1999 Stock Option Plan (Israel).10-K000-2713010.81June 24, 2008
10.22*Onaro, Inc. Amended and Restated 2002 Stock Option and Incentive Plan (including Appendix — Israeli Taxpayers).S-8333-1493754.1February 25, 2008
10.23*Bycast Inc. 2010 Equity Incentive Plan.S-8333-16761999.1June 18, 2010
10.24*Incentive Stock Option Plan of Bycast Inc.S-8333-16761999.2June 18, 2010
10.25*SolidFire, Inc. 2010 Stock Incentive Plan.S-8333-20957099.1February 17, 2016
10.26*SolidFire, Inc. 2016 Equity Incentive Plan.S-8333-20957099.2February 17, 2016
10.27*Outside Director Compensation Policy.10-K000-2713010.65June 19, 2012
Incorporation by Reference
Exhibit NoDescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitFiling Date
10.28*Offer Letter for employment at the Company to Ronald Pasek, dated March 22, 2016.10-K000-2713010.35June 22, 2016
10.29*NetApp, Inc. Executive Retiree Health Plan, as amended and restated.8-K000-2713010.1November 21, 2016
10.30Credit Agreement, dated as of December 12, 2016, by and among the Company, the lenders from time to time party thereto, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as administrative agent, Bank of America, N.A. and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as co-syndication agents, and The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. and Citibank, N.A., as co-documentation agents.8-K000-2713010.1December 12, 2016
10.31Amendment No. 1 to Credit Agreement, dated as of July 17, 2017, by and among the Company, the financial institutions listed on the signature pages and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as administrative agent.8-K000-2713010.1July 17, 2017
10.32Form of Dealer Agreement between the Company, as issuer, and each Dealer.8-K000-2713010.2December 12, 2016
10.33Collared Accelerated Share Repurchase Transaction dated as of June 5, 2013, by and between the Company and Goldman, Sachs & Co.10-Q000-2713010.1August 29, 2013
10.34Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of March 9, 2016 by and between the Company and Google Inc.10-K000-2713010.41June 22, 2016
10.35First Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of March 11, 2016, by and between the Company and Google Inc.10-K000-2713010.42June 22, 2016
10.36Second Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of April 8, 2016, by and between the Company and Google Inc.10-K000-2713010.43June 22, 2016
10.37Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of September 11, 2017 by and between the Company and Google Inc.10-Q000-2713010.2November 29, 2017
10.38First Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of October 2, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.3November 29, 2017
10.39Second Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of October 25, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.4November 29, 2017
Incorporation by Reference
Exhibit NoDescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitFiling Date
10.40Third Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of October 31, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.1February 22, 2018
10.41Fourth Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of November 2, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.2February 22, 2018
10.42Fifth Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of November 8, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.3February 22, 2018
10.43Sixth Amendment to Agreement of Purchase and Sale and Joint Escrow Instructions dated as of November 10, 2017, by and between the Company and Google LLC.10-Q000-2713010.4February 22, 2018
21.1Subsidiaries of the Company.————
23.1Consent of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm.————
24.1Power of Attorney (see signature page).————
31.1Certification of the Chief Executive Officer pursuant to Section 302(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.————
31.2Certification of the Chief Financial Officer pursuant to Section 302(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.————
32.1Certification of Chief Executive Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.————
32.2Certification of Chief Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.————
101.INSXBRL Instance Document————
101.SCHXBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document————
101.CALXBRL Taxonomy Calculation Linkbase Document————
101.DEFXBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document————
101.LABXBRL Taxonomy Label Linkbase Document————
101.PREXBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document————
*Identifies management plan or compensatory plan or arrangement.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.

NETAPP, INC.
By:/s/ GEORGE KURIAN
George Kurian
Chief Executive Officer and President (Principal Executive Officer and Principal Operating Officer)
Date: June 19, 2018

POWER OF ATTORNEY

KNOW ALL PERSONS BY THESE PRESENTS, that each person whose signature appears below constitutes and appoints George Kurian and Ronald J. Pasek, and each of them, as his true and lawful attorneys-in-fact and agents, with full power of substitution and resubstitution, for him and in his name, place and stead, in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments (including post-effective amendments) to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and to file the same, with all exhibits thereto, and other documents in connection therewith, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, granting unto said attorneys-in-fact and agents, and each of them, full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary to be done in connection therewith, as fully to all intents and purposes as he might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that said attorneys-in-fact and agents, or any of them, or their or his substitutes, may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue thereof.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated.

SignatureTitleDate
/s/ GEORGE KURIANChief Executive Officer and President (Principal Executive Officer and Principal Operating Officer)June 19, 2018
George Kurian
/s/ RONALD J. PASEKExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (Principal Financial Officer and Principal Accounting Officer)June 19, 2018
Ronald J. Pasek
/s/ T. MICHAEL NEVENSChairman of the BoardJune 19, 2018
T. Michael Nevens
/s/ ALAN L. EARHARTDirectorJune 19, 2018
Alan L. Earhart
/s/ GERALD HELDDirectorJune 19, 2018
Gerald Held
/s/ KATHRYN M. HILLDirectorJune 19, 2018
Kathryn M. Hill
/s/ DEBORAH KERRDirectorJune 19, 2018
Deborah Kerr
/s/ SCOTT SCHENKELDirectorJune 19, 2018
Scott Schenkel
/s/ GEORGE T. SHAHEENDirectorJune 19, 2018
George T. Shaheen
/s/ RICHARD P. WALLACEDirectorJune 19, 2018
Richard P. Wallace