VMware 2007 Annual Report Download - page 17

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Table of Contents
in the near term. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts or below any guidance we may
provide to the market, the price of our Class A common stock would likely decline substantially.
In addition, factors that may affect our operating results include, among others:
If operating system and hardware vendors do not cooperate with us or we are unable to obtain early access to their new products, or access to
certain information about their new products to ensure that our solutions interoperate with those products, our product development efforts
may be delayed or foreclosed.
Our products interoperate with Windows, Linux and other operating systems and the hardware devices of numerous manufacturers.
Developing products that interoperate properly requires substantial partnering, capital investment and employee resources, as well as the
cooperation of the vendors or developers of the operating systems and hardware. Operating system and hardware vendors may not provide us
with early access to their technology and products, assist us in these development efforts or share with or sell to us any application protocol
interfaces (“APIs”), formats, or protocols we may need. If they do not provide us with the necessary early access, assistance or proprietary
technology on a timely basis, we may experience product development delays or be unable to expand our products into other areas. To the extent
that software or hardware vendors develop products that compete with ours or those of our controlling stockholder, EMC, they may have an
incentive to withhold their cooperation, decline to share access or sell to us their proprietary APIs, protocols or formats or engage in practices to
actively limit the functionality, or compatibility, and certification of our products. In addition, hardware or operating system vendors may fail to
certify or support or continue to certify or support, our products for their systems. If any of the foregoing occurs, our product development
efforts may be delayed or foreclosed and our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.
13
•
fluctuations in demand, adoption, sales cycles and pricing levels for our products and services;
•
changes in customers
’
budgets for information technology purchases and in the timing of their purchasing decisions;
•
the timing of recognizing revenue in any given quarter as a result of software revenue recognition policies;
•
the sale of our products in the timeframes we anticipate, including the number and size of orders in each quarter;
•
our ability to develop, introduce and ship in a timely manner new products and product enhancements that meet customer demand,
certification requirements and technical requirements;
•
the timing of the announcement or release of products or upgrades by us or by our competitors;
•
our ability to implement scalable internal systems for reporting, order processing, license fulfillment, product delivery, purchasing,
billing and general accounting, among other functions;
•
our ability to control costs, including our operating expenses;
•
changes to our effective tax rate;
•
the increasing scale of our business and its effect on our ability to maintain historical rates of growth;
•
our ability to attract and retain highly skilled employees, particularly those with relevant experience in software development and
sales; and
•
general economic conditions in our domestic and international markets.