Support.com 2008 Annual Report Download - page 25

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Table of Contents
infrastructure. In addition, reductions in our workforce could make it difficult to motivate and retain remaining employees or attract needed new employees, and
could also affect our ability to deliver products and services in a timely fashion.
We must compete successfully in the markets in which we operate or our business will suffer.
We compete in markets that are highly competitive, subject to rapid change and significantly affected by new product introductions and other market
activities of industry participants. We compete with a number of companies in the market for support automation. In addition, our customers and potential
customers have developed or may develop similar offerings internally.
The markets for our products and services are still rapidly evolving, and we may not be able to compete successfully against current and potential
competitors. Our ability to expand our business will depend on our ability to maintain our technological advantage, introduce timely enhanced products to meet
growing support needs, deliver on-going value to our customers and scale our business. Our potential competitors may have longer operating histories,
significantly greater financial, technical and other resources, stronger strategic alliances or greater name recognition than we have. Competition in our markets
could reduce our market share or require us to reduce the price of products and services, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating
results.
In our Consumer business, we compete with electronics retailers that offer premium technology services, digital service provides, anti-virus providers, PC
manufacturers, warranty providers, companies that offer online technology support and local computer repair shops. Certain of these competitors have longer
operating histories, significantly greater financial, technical and other resources, greater access to large numbers of consumers, stronger strategic alliances or
greater name recognition than we have.
Our future product and service offerings may not achieve market acceptance.
If we fail to develop enhanced versions of our software and services offerings in a timely manner or to provide products and services that achieve rapid and
broad market acceptance, we may not maintain or expand our market share. We may fail to identify new product and service opportunities for our current market
or new markets that we enter in the future. In addition, our existing products and services may become obsolete if we fail to introduce new products and services
that meet new customer demands, support new standards or integrate with new or upgraded versions of packaged applications or operating systems. While we are
developing new products and services, such as our new Dynamic Agent technology and RemoteTango product, there can be no assurance that these new products
will gain market acceptance or generate material revenue for us. We have limited control over factors that affect market acceptance of our product and services,
including the willingness of companies to transition to automated solutions and customer preferences for competitors’ products, services and delivery models.
Our products depend on, and work with, products containing complex software; if our products fail to perform properly due to errors in the software,
we may need to devote resources to correct the errors or compensate for losses from these errors and our reputation could be harmed.
Our products depend on complex software, both internally developed and licensed from third parties. Also, our customers may use our products with other
companies’ products, which may also contain complex software. Complex software often contains errors and may not perform properly. These errors could result
in:
• Delays in product shipments;
• Unexpected expenses and diversion of resources to identify the source of errors or to correct errors, whether or not the error is later determined to be
related to our software;
• Damage to our reputation;
22
Source: SUPPORTSOFT INC, 10-K, March 11, 2009