Autodesk 2010 Annual Report Download - page 118

We rely on third party technologies and if we are unable to use or integrate these technologies, our product
and service development may be delayed and our operating results negatively impacted.
We rely on certain software that we license from third parties, including software that is integrated with
internally developed software and used in our products to perform key functions. These third-party software
licenses may not continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms, and the software may not be
appropriately supported, maintained or enhanced by the licensors. The loss of licenses to, or inability to support,
maintain and enhance any such software could result in increased costs, or in delays or reductions in product
shipments until equivalent software can be developed, identified, licensed and integrated, which would likely
harm our business.
Disruptions with licensing relationships and third party developers could adversely impact our business.
We license certain key technologies from third parties. Licenses may be restricted in the term or the use of
such technology in ways that negatively affect our business. Similarly, we may not be able to obtain or renew
license agreements for key technology on favorable terms, if at all, and any failure to do so could harm our business.
Our business strategy has historically depended in part on our relationships with third-party developers who
provide products that expand the functionality of our design software. Some developers may elect to support
other products or may experience disruption in product development and delivery cycles or financial pressure
during periods of economic downturn. In particular markets, such disruption have in the past, and would likely in
the future, negatively impact these third-party developers and end users, which could harm our business.
Additionally, technology created by outsourced product development, whether outsourced to third parties or
developed externally and transferred to us through business or technology acquisitions, have certain additional
risks such as effective integration into existing products, adequate transfer of technology know-how and
ownership and protection of transferred intellectual property.
As a result of our strategy of partnering with other companies for product development, our product delivery
schedules could be adversely affected if we experience difficulties with our product development partners.
We partner with certain independent firms and contractors to perform some of our product development
activities. We believe our partnering strategy allows us to, among other things, achieve efficiencies in developing
new products and maintaining and enhancing existing product offerings. Our partnering strategy creates a
dependency on such independent developers. Independent developers, including those who currently develop
products for us in the U.S. and throughout the world, may not be able or willing to provide development support
to us in the future. In addition, use of development resources through consulting relationships, particularly in
non-U.S. jurisdictions with developing legal systems, may be adversely impacted by, and expose us to risks
relating to, evolving employment, export and intellectual property laws. These risks could, among other things,
expose our intellectual property to misappropriation and result in disruptions to product delivery schedules.
We rely on third-parties to provide us with a number of operational services, including hosting and delivery,
certain of our customer services operations as well as some of our operations; any interruption or delay in
service from these third parties, breaches of security or privacy, or failures in data collection could expose us
to liability, harm our reputation and adversely impact our financial performance.
We rely on hosted computer services from third parties for services that we provide our customers and
computer operations for our internal use. As we gather customer data and host certain customer data in third-
party facilities, a security breach could compromise the integrity or availability of customer data. In addition, our
operations could be negatively affected in the event of a security breach, and we could be subject to the loss or
theft of confidential or proprietary information, including source code. Unauthorized access to this data may be
obtained through break-ins, breach of our secure network by an unauthorized party, employee theft or misuse, or
other misconduct.
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