Salesforce.com 2014 Annual Report Download - page 25

property rights are uncertain. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be
available to us in every country in which our service is available. The laws of some foreign countries may not be
as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the U.S., and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual
property rights may be inadequate and we also face proposals to change the scope of protection for some
intellectual property rights in the U.S. Also, our involvement in standard setting activity or the need to obtain
licenses from others may require us to license our intellectual property. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may
be unable to prevent third parties from using our intellectual property.
We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights and
we may conclude that in at least some instances the benefits of protecting our intellectual property rights may be
outweighed by the expense. We may initiate claims or litigation against third parties for infringement of our
proprietary rights or to establish the validity of our proprietary rights. Any litigation, whether or not it is resolved in
our favor, could result in significant expense to us and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel.
Our continued success depends on our ability to maintain and enhance our brands.
We believe that the brand identities we have developed have significantly contributed to the success of our
business. Maintaining and enhancing the salesforce.com brand and our other brands are critical to expanding our
base of customers, partners and employees. Our brands will depend largely on our ability to remain a technology
leader and continue to provide high-quality innovative products, services, and features. In order to maintain and
enhance our brands, we may be required to make substantial investments that may later prove to be unsuccessful.
If we fail to maintain and enhance our brands, or if we incur excessive expenses in our efforts to do so, our
business, operating results and financial condition may be materially and adversely affected.
We may lose key members of our management team or development and operations personnel, and may
be unable to attract and retain employees we need to support our operations and growth.
Our success depends substantially upon the continued services of our executive officers and other key
members of management, particularly our Chief Executive Officer. From time to time, there may be changes in
our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives. Such changes in our
executive management team may be disruptive to our business. We are also substantially dependent on the
continued service of our existing development and operations personnel because of the complexity of our service
and technologies. We do not have employment agreements with any of our executive officers, key management,
development or operations personnel and they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of
one or more of our key employees or groups could seriously harm our business.
In the technology industry, there is substantial and continuous competition for engineers with high levels of
experience in designing, developing and managing software and Internet-related services, as well as competition
for sales executives and operations personnel. We may not be successful in attracting and retaining qualified
personnel. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring
and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail
to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be severely harmed.
Any failure in our delivery of high-quality technical support services may adversely affect our
relationships with our customers and our financial results.
Our customers depend on our support organization to resolve technical issues relating to our applications.
We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for
support services. Increased customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenues, could increase
costs and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, our sales process is highly dependent on our
applications and business reputation and on positive recommendations from our existing customers. Any failure
to maintain high-quality technical support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality support,
could adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell our enterprise cloud computing solutions to existing and
prospective customers, and our business, operating results and financial position.
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