EMC 2010 Annual Report Download - page 10

Table of Contents
Seasonality
We generally experience the lowest demand for our products and services in the first quarter of the year and the greatest demand for our products and
services in the last quarter of the year, which is consistent with the seasonality of the IT industry as a whole.
Intellectual Property
We generally rely on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws and contract rights 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 as a whole is not materially
dependent on any particular patent, trademark, license or other intellectual property right.
We have been granted or own by assignment approximately 2,600 patents issued by, and have approximately 1,350 patent applications pending with,
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as a corresponding number of international patents and patent applications. While the durations of our patents
vary, we believe that the durations of our patents are adequate relative to the expected lives of our products.
We have used, registered or applied to register certain trademarks and copyrights in the United States and in other countries. We also license certain
technology from third parties for use in our products and processes and license some of our technologies to third parties.
Employees
As of December 31, 2010, we had approximately 48,500 employees worldwide, of which approximately 9,000 were employed by or working on behalf
of VMware. None of our domestic employees is represented by a labor union, and we have never suffered an interruption of business as a result of a labor
dispute. We consider our relations with our employees to be good.
Financial Information About Segments, Foreign and Domestic Operations and Export Sales
EMC operates its business in two broad categories: EMC Information Infrastructure and VMware Virtual Infrastructure.
Sales and marketing operations outside the United States are conducted through sales subsidiaries and branches located principally in Europe, Latin
America and the Asia Pacific region. We have five manufacturing facilities: two in Massachusetts, which manufacture storage products and security products
for the North American markets, two in Ireland, which manufacture storage products and security products for markets outside of North America, and one in
North Carolina, which manufactures storage products for worldwide markets. We also utilize contract manufacturers throughout the world to manufacture or
assemble our Data Domain, Iomega and, in limited amounts, other information infrastructure products. See Note R to the Consolidated Financial Statements
for information about revenues by segment and geographic area.
Sustainability
We recognize that the long-term success of our business depends on an economically vital, inclusive and educated society as well as on a healthy
environment. Therefore, we strive to make decisions and operate our business in a sustainable way. Our priorities include improving our performance and
collaborating with industry peers, governments, and non-governmental organizations to advance energy, climate change and material use and waste priorities;
providing technologies and services to address some of the world's challenges, such as energy, healthcare and delivery of government services; upholding the
protection of human rights and investing in furthering education, innovation and inclusion for our employees and in communities around the world; and
supporting EMC's continued financial success and increasing shareholder value through our approach to corporate sustainability, commitment to good
corporate governance and by maintaining customer and community trust.
We focus our environmental sustainability efforts on optimizing our operations and supply chain, transforming our customers' information
infrastructures to be more efficient, leveraging a culture of innovation and accountability, and collaborating with our peers to drive standards and metrics. Our
top environmental priorities are energy and climate change, material and waste, and water. We have set global targets to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and are collaborating with our suppliers to find opportunities for efficiencies in their operations. We recognize the opportunity through the
application of IT to reduce global GHG emissions and are designing all future enterprise and midrange storage systems with highly efficient power supplies
and delivering capabilities to our customers that enable them to run their IT infrastructures more efficiently. In 2010, we conducted our first multi-stakeholder
forum to broaden and deepen our dialogue with external stakeholders with interests in EMC's environmental performance.
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