Autodesk 2003 Annual Report Download - page 17

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We intend to continue to make our products available in foreign languages. We believe that international
sales will continue to be a significant portion of our consolidated net revenues. We are in a time of significant
political unrest and economic troubles. Continued economic weakness in any of the countries which contribute a
significant portion of our net revenues would likely have a material adverse effect on our business. A summary
of our financial information by geographic location is found in Note 13 in the Notes to Consolidated Financial
Statements.
CUSTOMER AND RESELLER SUPPORT
Through our Autodesk Professional Services Division for Design Solutions products and through Discreet
for its products, we provide technical support and training to customers through a leveraged model, augmented
by programs designed to address specific direct needs. We expect that end users rely primarily on their resellers
and distributors for technical support. We support the resellers and distributors through technical product
training, sales training classes, the Internet and direct telephone support. Support content is also available on the
Product Support portion of our Internet site. There are also a number of user group forums in which customers
are able to share information.
While we expect the resellers and distributors to provide the majority of technical support to our customers,
we have developed programs to deliver direct support to some customers.
DEVELOPER PROGRAMS
One of our key strategies is to maintain an open-architecture design of our software products to facilitate
third-party development of complementary products and industry-specific software solutions. This approach
enables customers and third parties to customize our products for a wide variety of highly specific uses. We offer
several programs that provide marketing, sales, technical support and programming tools to developers who
develop add-on applications for our products.
BACKLOG
We typically ship products shortly after receipt of an order, which is common in the computer software
industry. Accordingly, we do not maintain a significant backlog. Moreover, the backlog as of any particular date
gives no indication of actual sales for any succeeding period.
COMPETITION
We compete with a variety of companies in different aspects of our business.
The software industry has limited barriers to entry, and the availability of desktop computers with
continually expanding performance capacity at progressively lower prices contributes to the ease of market entry.
The markets in which we compete are fairly mature and characterized by vigorous competition; both by entry of
competitors with innovative technologies and by consolidation of companies with complementary products and
technologies. In addition, the availability of third-party application software is a competitive factor within the
CAD market. Because of these and other factors, competitive conditions in these industries are likely to continue
to intensify in the future. Increased competition could result in price reductions, reduced net revenues and profit
margins and loss of market share, any of which could harm our business. Furthermore, some of our competitors
have greater financial, technical, sales and marketing and other resources.
We believe that our future results depend largely upon our ability to offer new products and to continue to
provide existing product offerings that compete favorably with respect to reliability, performance, ease of use,
range of useful features, continuing product enhancements, reputation, price and training.
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