Blackberry 2014 Annual Report Download - page 12

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the Company's business, existing and future relationships with business partners and end customers of its products and
services, and its ability to attract and retain key employees;
• risks related to the Company’s ability to offset or mitigate the impact of the decline in the Company’s service access
fees on its consolidated revenue by developing an integrated services and software offering;
• intense competition, rapid change and significant strategic alliances within the Company’s industry, including recent
and potential future strategic transactions by its competitors or carrier partners, which could continue to weaken the
Company’s competitive position or could continue to require the Company to reduce its prices to compete effectively;
• the Company's ability to adapt to, and realize the anticipated benefit of, its recent board of directors (the “Board”) and
management changes;
• the Company’s increasing reliance on third-party manufacturers for certain products and its ability to manage its
production and repair process, and risks related to the Company changing manufacturers or reducing the number of
manufacturers or suppliers it uses;
• risks related to the Company's ability to implement and to realize the benefits of its previously-disclosed operational
restructuring initiatives, including the CORE program, and its ability to continue to realize cost reductions in the
future, including the Company's ongoing efforts to continue to implement a workforce reduction of approximately
4,500 positions by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2015;
• the risk that workforce reductions may result in a disruption to business critical processes and the effectiveness of the
Company's internal controls;
• the Company’s ability to maintain its existing relationships with its network carrier partners and distributors, and its
reliance on its network carrier partners to help promote the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry 10 smartphones;
• risks related to the Company’s ability to maintain or increase its liquidity, its existing cash balance, its ability to access
existing or potential alternative sources of funding, the sufficiency of its financial resources, and its ability to service
its debt;
• risks related to the Company's significant indebtedness;
• the Company’s ability to address inventory and asset risk, including its ability to sell its inventory of BlackBerry 10
products, manage its purchase obligations with its manufacturing partners and the potential for additional charges
related to its inventory, as well as its ability to mitigate inventory risk through its new partnership with Foxconn;
• the potential for additional charges relating to the impairment of intangible assets recorded on the Company’s balance
sheet;
• the occurrence or perception of a breach of the Company’s security measures, or an inappropriate disclosure of
confidential or personal information;
• the Company’s ability to successfully maintain and enhance its brand in light of recent challenges;
• the efficient and uninterrupted operation of the Company's network operations center and the networks of its carrier
partners, and the risk of other business interruptions, including costs, potential liabilities, lost revenues and
reputational damage associated with service interruptions;
• risks associated with the Company's foreign operations, including risks related to recent political and economic
developments in Venezuela and Argentina, and the impact of foreign currency restrictions that continue to impact its
ability to recognize revenue from sales of services in Venezuela and recently, Argentina;
• general commercial litigation, class action and other litigation claims, including purported class action claims relating
to the Company or its operations;
• risks associated with litigation claims against the Company arising from the Company’s practice of providing a
forward-looking outlook to its shareholders with respect to certain financial metrics, including the Company’s practice
of updating a previous outlook where circumstances warrant;
• risks related to the failure of the Company’s suppliers, subcontractors, third-party distributors and representatives to
use acceptable ethical business practices or comply with applicable laws;
• third-party claims for infringement of intellectual property rights by the Company and the outcome of any litigation
with respect thereto;
• the Company’s ability to successfully obtain patent or other proprietary or statutory protection for its technologies and
products;
• reliance on strategic alliances and relationships with third-party network infrastructure developers, software platform
vendors and service platform vendors, including the Company’s ability to promote and advance the development of an
ecosystem of applications and services for the BlackBerry 10 platform;
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