VMware 2010 Annual Report Download - page 14

Table of Contents
Our granted United States patents, and any future patents (to the extent they are issued), may be contested, circumvented, or invalidated in the
future. Moreover, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with proprietary protection or competitive advantages, and we
may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing these patents. Therefore, the exact effect of our patents and the other steps we have taken
to protect our intellectual property cannot be predicted with certainty.
Employees
As of December 31, 2010, we had approximately 9,000 employees in offices worldwide, less than 5% of which were contracted through
EMC. None of our employees are represented by labor unions, and we consider current employee relations to be good.
We contract with EMC to utilize personnel who are dedicated to work for VMware on a full-time basis. These individuals are located in
countries in which we do not currently have an operating subsidiary and are predominantly dedicated to our sales and marketing efforts. We use
contractors from time to time for temporary assignments and in locations in which we do not currently have operating subsidiaries. In the event
that these contractor resources were not available, we do not believe that this would have a material adverse effect on our operations.
Available Information
Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed or
furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), are made available
free of charge on or through our website at www.vmware.com as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are filed with, or furnished to,
the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Copies of (i) the charters for our Audit Committee, Compensation and Corporate
Governance Committee, and Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, (ii) our Business Conduct Guidelines (code of business conduct and ethics),
and (iii) our Corporate Governance Guidelines are available on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.vmware.com. We periodically
webcast company announcements, product launch events and executive presentations which can be viewed via our Investor Relations website.
Additionally, we may provide notifications from time to time of material news including SEC filings, investor events, press releases and
corporate blogs on our Investor Relations website. The contents of these web sites are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this
report or in any other report or document we file. None of the information posted on or accessible through our website is incorporated by
reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Unless the context requires otherwise, we are referring to VMware, Inc. when we use the terms “VMware,” the “Company,” “we,” “our”
or “us.”
The risk factors that appear below could materially affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. The risks and
uncertainties described below are not the only risks and uncertainties facing us. Our business is also subject to general risks and uncertainties that
affect many other companies.
Risks Related to Our Business
The virtualization and cloud computing products and services we sell are now increasingly targeted at emerging applications and therefore
the potential market for our products remains uncertain.
Our products and services are based on computer virtualization and related technologies that have primarily been used for virtualizing on-
premises data centers. We are also designing our products and services for use in emerging applications as a platform for cloud computing and
end-user computing. Cloud computing applications for our products and services include infrastructure-as-a-service, or “IaaS,” platform-as-a-
service, or “PaaS,” and
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ITEM 1A.
RISK FACTORS