We may be unsuccessful in developing and selling new products and services, integrating acquired products and services and enhancing our existing products and services. Our industry is characterized by rapid technological advances, intense competition, changing delivery models, evolving standards in communications infrastructure, increasingly sophisticated customer needs and frequent new product introductions and enhancements. We have continued to refresh and release new offerings of our cloud products and services, but if we are unable to develop new or sufficiently differentiated products and services, enhance and improve our product offerings and support services in a timely manner or position and price our products and services to meet demand, customers may not purchase or subscribe to our license, hardware or cloud offerings or renew license support, hardware support or cloud subscriptions contracts. Renewals of these contracts are important to our future success. In addition, we cannot provide any assurance that the standards on which we choose to develop new products will allow us to compete effectively for business opportunities in emerging areas.
In addition, our business may be adversely affected if:
we do not continue to develop and release new or enhanced products and services within the anticipated time frames;
we do not continue to develop and release new or enhanced products and services within the anticipated time frames;
infrastructure costs to deliver new or enhanced products and services take longer or result in greater costs than anticipated;
infrastructure costs to deliver new or enhanced products and services take longer or result in greater costs than anticipated;
supply chain costs, energy costs or other costs to develop, produce or distribute our products and services result in greater costs than anticipated;
supply chain costs, energy costs or other costs to develop, produce or distribute our products and services result in greater costs than anticipated;
we are unable to accurately anticipate, plan for and manage future data center capacity needs in a timely manner to meet current or expected customer demand;
we are unable to accurately anticipate, plan for and manage future data center capacity needs in a timely manner to meet current or expected customer demand;
we fail to meet our contractual service level commitments;
we fail to meet our contractual service level commitments;
there is a delay in market acceptance of and difficulty in transitioning new and existing customers to new, enhanced or acquired product lines or services;
there is a delay in market acceptance of and difficulty in transitioning new and existing customers to new, enhanced or acquired product lines or services;
sanctions, tariffs, export controls, geopolitical instability and related market disruptions or other regulatory, legislative or other trade and non-tariff barriers, including retaliatory measures, impede or prevent us from serving certain customers or restrict our customers from operating in specific jurisdictions;
sanctions, tariffs, export controls, geopolitical instability and related market disruptions or other regulatory, legislative or other trade and non-tariff barriers, including retaliatory measures, impede or prevent us from serving certain customers or restrict our customers from operating in specific jurisdictions;
inflation, trade policy, geopolitical conditions and other macroeconomic factors reduce customer demand for our products and services or cause us to be unable to meet current or expected customer demand;
inflation, trade policy, geopolitical conditions and other macroeconomic factors reduce customer demand for our products and services or cause us to be unable to meet current or expected customer demand;
there are changes in IT trends that we do not adequately anticipate or timely address with our product development efforts;
there are changes in IT trends that we do not adequately anticipate or timely address with our product development efforts;
we do not optimize complementary product lines and services in a timely manner; or
we do not optimize complementary product lines and services in a timely manner; or
we fail to adequately integrate, support or enhance acquired product lines or services.
we fail to adequately integrate, support or enhance acquired product lines or services.
In addition, our profitability and revenues could be adversely impacted if we lose one or more of our key customers for any reason, including as a result of any of the factors discussed above. Any such loss could also limit or reduce our growth in future periods.
Our AI products may not operate as anticipated, which could adversely affect our reputation, revenues and profitability. Machine learning and AI, including generative AI, agentic AI and LLMs, are increasingly driving innovations in technology, and AI technology and services are highly competitive and rapidly evolving. We have invested, and expect to continue to invest, significant resources to build and support our AI products. In addition, we rely on partners and suppliers to produce some of our AI products. If we are unable to introduce new AI products or if our AI products fail to operate as anticipated or as well as competing products or otherwise do not meet customer needs, or if our competitors’ AI products achieve higher market acceptance than ours, we may fail to