Citrix 2014 Annual Report Download - page 22

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Additionally, there is a risk that our products may become outdated or that our market share may erode. Further, the
announcement of the release, and the actual release, of new products incorporating similar features to our products could cause
our existing and potential customers to postpone or cancel plans to license certain of our existing and future product and service
offerings. Existing or new products and services that provide alternatives to our products and services could materially impact
our ability to compete in these markets. As the markets for our products and services, especially those products in early stages
of development, continue to develop, additional companies, including companies with significant market presence in the
computer hardware, software, cloud, networking, mobile, collaboration, data sharing and related industries, could enter, or
increase their footprint in, the markets in which we compete and further intensify competition. In addition, we believe price
competition could become a more significant competitive factor in the future. As a result, we may not be able to maintain our
historic prices and margins, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We expect to continue to face additional competition as new participants enter our markets and as our current competitors
seek to increase market share. As our businesses continue to expand globally, we may see new and increased competition in
different geographic regions. The generally low barriers to entry in certain of our businesses increase the potential for
challenges from new industry competitors, whether small and medium sized businesses or larger, more established companies.
Smaller companies new to our market may have more flexibility to develop on more agile platforms and have greater ability to
adapt their strategies and cost structures, which may give them a competitive advantage with our current or prospective
customers. We may also experience increased competition from new types of products as the options for mobile and cloud,
networking and collaboration and data sharing solutions increase. Further, as our industry evolves and if our company grows,
companies with which we have strategic alliances may become competitors in other product areas, or our current competitors
may enter into new strategic relationships with new or existing competitors, all of which may further increase the competitive
pressures we face.
Our new product and technology initiatives subject us to additional business, legal and competitive risks.
We have transformed and continue to transform our business through several growth phases, from remote access to web
app delivery, to virtualization, to mobile workspaces and to the software-defined workplace. In this transition, we are
introducing new products and technologies, such as the Citrix Workspace Cloud.
This strategic transformation in our business and expansion of our offerings subjects us to additional risks, which could
adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. These risks include:
• certain of our new product initiatives have a subscription model and we may not be able to accurately predict
subscription renewal rates or their impact on results;
• if customers do not adopt our new product or service offerings, we may be unable to recoup or realize a reasonable
return on our investment in these new products and services;
• sales of existing products and service offerings may be delayed while customers are investigating our new offerings;
• competitive product and service offerings in emerging IT sectors may gain broad adoption before our products and
services and, it may be difficult for us to displace such offerings regardless of the comparative technical merit, efficacy
or cost of our products and services;
• we may not be able to develop and implement effective go-to-market strategies and train our sales team and channel
partners in order to effectively market offerings in product categories in which we have less experience than our
competitors;
• we may not be able to develop effective pricing strategies for our new products and services;
• hardware, software and cloud hosting vendors may not be able to ensure interoperability with our products and offer
compatible products and services to end users;
• our new initiatives may be hosted by third parties whom we do not control but whose failure to prevent service
disruptions, or other failures or breaches may require us compensate, indemnify or otherwise be liable to customers or
third parties for business interruptions or damages that may occur.
In order to be successful, we must attract, engage, retain and integrate key employees and have adequate succession plans
in place, and failure to do so could have an adverse effect on our ability to manage our business.
Our success depends, in large part, on our ability to attract, engage, retain, and integrate qualified executives and other
key employees throughout all areas of our business. Identifying, developing internally or hiring externally, training and
retaining highly-skilled managerial, technical, sales and services, finance and marketing personnel are critical to our future, and
competition for experienced employees can be intense. In order to attract and retain executives and other key employees in a
competitive marketplace, we must provide a competitive compensation package, including cash- and equity-based
compensation. If we do not obtain the stockholder approval needed to continue granting equity compensation in a competitive
manner, our ability to attract, retain, and motivate executives and key employees could be weakened. Failure to successfully