Item 1. Business
We are a leading supplier of cloud networking solutions that use software innovations to address the needs of large-scale Internet companies, cloud service providers and next-generation data centers for enterprise support. Our cloud networking solutions consist of our Extensible Operating System, or EOS, a set of network applications and our Ethernet switching and routing platforms. Our cloud networking solutions deliver industry-leading performance, scalability, availability, programmability, automation and visibility. At the core of our cloud networking platform is EOS, which was purpose-built to be fully programmable and highly modular. The programmability of EOS has allowed us to create a set of software applications that address the requirements of cloud networking, including workflow automation, network visibility and analytics, and has also allowed us to rapidly integrate with a wide range of third-party applications for virtualization, management, automation, orchestration and network services. Since we began shipping our products, we have grown rapidly, and, according to Crehan Research, we have achieved the second largest market share in data center 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet switch ports, excluding blade switching, sold in 2017. We have been profitable and cash flow positive for each year since 2010.
EOS supports leading cloud and virtualization solutions, including VMware NSX, Microsoft System Center, OpenStack and other cloud management frameworks. We have worked with industry leaders to define new open protocols for the virtualized data center. We co-authored the VXLAN protocol specification with VMware and were the first to demonstrate VXLAN integration and have now expanded VXLAN routing and integration.
We use standard Linux as our underlying operating system, providing customers with access to all Linux operating system facilities. This allows customers to extend our EOS software with off-the-shelf Linux applications and a growing number of open source management tools.
EOS has a highly modular architecture, which allows us to prevent network outages in deployments of our cloud networking solutions. This architecture also allows us to rapidly develop new features and protocols without compromising the quality of the existing code base. Because all of our platform products are powered by the same binary image of EOS, we are able to deliver these new innovations to our entire installed base with minimal disruption.
EOS+, a software platform for network programmability and automation, provides an advanced level of programmability, allowing customers to take advantage of pre-built and custom EOS applications as well as integration with a wide range of technology partner solutions.
In 2015, we introduced CloudVision, a network-wide approach for workload orchestration and workflow automation delivering a turnkey solution for cloud networking. We believe CloudVision’s abstraction of the physical network to this broader, network-wide perspective allows for a more efficient approach for several operational use-cases related to automation, visibility, management, security and 3
rd
party controller integration.
We sell our products through both our direct sales force and our channel partners. Since shipping our first products in 2008, our cumulative end-customer base has grown rapidly. Between December 31,
2011
and
December 31, 2017
, our cumulative end-customer base grew from approximately
1,100
to over
4,900
. Our end customers span a range of industries and include large Internet companies, service providers, financial services organizations, government agencies, media and entertainment companies and others. Our customers include six of the largest cloud services providers based on annual revenue.
Industry Background
Cloud computing is fundamentally changing the way IT infrastructure is built and how applications are delivered. In cloud computing, applications are distributed across thousands of servers. These servers are connected with high-speed network switches that, together, form a pool of resources that allows applications to be rapidly deployed and cost-effectively updated. Cloud computing enables ubiquitous and on-demand network access to these applications from Internet-connected devices including personal computers, tablets and smartphones.
Nearly all consumer applications today are delivered as cloud services. Enterprise applications are rapidly moving to the cloud as well, since cloud services are easier and more cost effective to deploy, scale and operate than traditional applications. Internet leaders like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! pioneered the development of large-scale cloud data centers in order to meet the growing demands of their users, including business customers. Enterprises and service providers around the world are adopting cloud computing technologies in order to achieve similar performance improvements and cost reductions.
The aggregate network bandwidth in the cloud can be orders of magnitude higher than typical legacy data center networks. Therefore, the networks in such cloud environments must be architected and built in a new way. We refer to these next-generation data center networks as cloud networks. Cloud networks must deliver high capacity, high availability and predictable performance and must be programmable to allow integration with third-party applications for network, management, automation, orchestration and network services.
Limitations of Traditional Data Center Networks
In our view, cloud networks and legacy networks are fundamentally different. In a traditional data center, specific applications are installed on a small number of servers, and most network traffic is server-to-client, or “north-south” traffic, which results in perhaps a few terabits/second of aggregate network bandwidth. In the cloud, most network traffic is server-to-server, or “east-west” traffic. The aggregate network bandwidth in the cloud can exceed 1 petabit/second, orders of magnitude higher than that of typical legacy data center networks.
The much larger scale of cloud networks requires much higher network availability since network outages in the cloud are very expensive in terms of customer impact. Traditional network switches have evolved, and the features and capabilities of their operating system have expanded over many years without addressing the structural deficiencies of their underlying software architectures, making it difficult to achieve high network switch reliability.
Some networking vendors have built products that use proprietary protocols to address the scaling needs of next-generation data centers. However, proprietary protocols are generally not acceptable to Internet companies or cloud service providers because they create vendor lock-in.
Legacy networks are not programmable and, as a result, are extremely difficult to integrate with third-party applications for network management, automation, orchestration and network services. This lack of integration forces customers to continue to rely on time consuming, error-prone manual processes that may be cost-prohibitive.
Requirements for Cloud Networking
Cloud networks differ in many aspects from legacy networks, including capacity, performance, scale, availability, programmability, automation, visibility, security and cost performance. The requirements for cloud networking include the following:
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Capacity, Performance and Scalability.
Cloud networks must have sufficient capacity to interconnect large numbers of servers, up to hundreds of thousands, with predictable network bandwidth.
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High Availability.
Cloud networks must overcome hardware and software failures for customers in order to avoid network outages that can result in lost revenue, dissatisfied customers and increased operational cost.
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Open and Programmable.
Cloud networks must be based on open protocols and be programmable to enable integration with leading network applications and management and data analysis tools.
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Workflow Automation.
Cloud networks must offer automated provisioning and configuration to enable fast service delivery and to minimize operational costs, avoiding time-consuming and error-prone manual processes for configuring, provisioning, monitoring and managing the network.
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Network Visibility.
Cloud networks must provide IT administrators with real-time in-depth visibility of network status to proactively monitor, detect and notify when issues arise.
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Security.
Cloud networks require dynamic security and services from physical-to-physical and physical-to-virtual workloads.
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Cost Performance.
Cloud networks must deliver high performance while lowering overall cost of ownership, including capital and operational costs.
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Our Cloud Networking Solutions
We are a leading supplier of cloud networking solutions that use software innovations to address the needs of large-scale Internet companies, cloud service providers and next-generation enterprise data centers. Our cloud networking platform was purpose-built to address the functional and performance requirements for cloud networks. We deliver our solutions via our industry-leading 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers optimized for next-generation data center networks.
Our cloud networking solutions consist of EOS, our Extensible Operating System, a set of networking applications and our Gigabit Ethernet platforms. At the core of our cloud networking platform is EOS, which was architected to be fully programmable and highly modular.
The programmability of EOS has allowed us to create a set of software applications and application programming interfaces, or APIs, that address the requirements of cloud networking, including workflow automation, network visibility and analytics, and has further allowed us to integrate rapidly with a wide range of third-party applications for virtualization, management, automation, orchestration and network services.
The key benefits of our cloud networking solutions are as follows:
Capacity, Performance and Scalability
Our cloud networking platform enables data center networks to scale to hundreds of thousands of physical servers and millions of virtual machines with the least number of switching tiers. We achieve this by leveraging standard protocols to meet the scale requirements
of cloud computing. We have used active-active Layer 2 and Layer 3 network topologies to enable customers to build extremely large and resilient networks.
High Availability
Our highly modular EOS software architecture was designed to be fault-isolating and self-healing in order to deliver higher stability compared to legacy network operating systems. In addition, our customers can non-disruptively upgrade our switches running in the network using our Smart System Upgrade, or SSU, application.
Open and Programmable
Our EOS software was purpose-built to offer programmable interfaces throughout all levels of our software. This has allowed us to integrate our cloud networking platform with a wide range of leading third-party applications. For example, we support VMware NSX, OpenStack and Microsoft System Center for orchestration and fast provisioning, enabling true workload mobility and automatic provisioning of physical switches. We enable customers, through application programming interfaces, to write their own scripts to customize and optimize their networks. In addition, we support a wide range of software-defined network controllers via our OpenFlow and DirectFlow interfaces.
Workflow Automation
Our EOS software enables enterprises to provision networking resources in minutes with no manual intervention through our Zero Touch Provisioning. We also natively support Ansible, CFEngine, Chef, Puppet, virtual network orchestration applications and third-party management tools. CloudVision, a network-wide approach for workload orchestration and workflow automation delivers a turnkey solution for cloud networking. CloudVision extends the same EOS architectural approach across the network for state, topology, monitoring and visibility. This enables enterprises to move to cloud-class automation without needing significant internal development. Finally, EOS embraces the DevOps model, which is a software development method that combines development and operations, to provision and monitor servers, storage and network resources in a unified fashion.
Network Visibility
Our EOS software provides a set of tools and applications that proactively monitor, detect and notify network managers when network issues arise, delivering real-time data to third-party management applications including Corvil, ExtraHop, Riverbed and Splunk to provide detailed application visibility. Our telemetry applications include VM Tracer, which provides visibility down to the virtual machine level, Path Tracer, which detects errors in provisioned network paths, MapReduce Tracer, which monitors and optimizes the performance of Hadoop workloads, and Health Tracer, which monitors infrastructure resiliency. Our network visibility applications provide real-time insight into the status of the network. They include LANZ, which monitors latency, and DANZ 2017, a set of features previously only available in add-on network visibility devices, which provides advanced traffic monitoring with flow analysis and timestamps, plus the ability to perform tap aggregation for reporting and analysis.
Security
Macro-Segmentation Services (MSS™) is one of the services enabled via CloudVision. Since CloudVision maintains a network-wide database of all state within the network, as well as direct integration with hypervisor resources like VMware vSphere and NSX. It is aware of every workload that is within the network and it learns in real time about new devices or workloads that are added or removed from the network, or moved across ports or servers. Macro-segmentation extends the concept of fine-grained inter-hypervisor security to cloud networks by enabling dynamic security and services for physical to virtual workloads. Macro-segmentation security is a complement to fine-grained security delivered via micro-segmentation that is already implemented in the virtual switch of the physical host on which a VM is running.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Our cloud networking platform offers architectural and system advantages that provide our customers with cost-effective and highly available cloud networking solutions. Our programmable, scalable leaf-spine architectures, combined with industry-leading applications, significantly reduce networking costs when compared to legacy network designs, enabling faster time to service and improved availability. Our automation tools reduce the operational costs of provisioning, managing and monitoring a data center network and speed up service delivery. Our visibility tools provide high levels of visibility into complex network environments without the need for additional data collection equipment. As a result, fewer network engineers are needed to operate large networks.
Our Market Opportunity
We compete primarily in the data center switching market for 10 Gigabit Ethernet and above, excluding blade switches.
We believe that cloud computing represents a fundamental shift from traditional legacy data centers and that cloud networking is the fastest growing segment within the data center switching market. As organizations of all sizes are adopting cloud architectures, spending on cloud and next-generation data centers has increased rapidly over the last several years, while traditional legacy IT spending has been growing more slowly. In 2017, our 7150, 7050, 7250, 7300 and 7500 Series platforms are now listed on the U. S. Department of Defense Approved Products Lists Integrated Tracking System by the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Our Customers
As of
December 31, 2017
, we had delivered our cloud networking solutions to over
4,900
end customers worldwide in approximately
80
countries. Our end customers span a range of industries and include large Internet companies, service providers, financial services organizations, government agencies, media and entertainment companies and others. For each of the years ended
December 31, 2017
,
2016
, and
2015
, Microsoft purchases, through our channel partner World Wide Technology, Inc., accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue.
Our Competitive Strengths
We believe the following strengths will allow us to maintain and extend our technology leadership position in cloud networking and next-generation data center Ethernet products:
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Purpose-Built Cloud Networking Platform.
We have developed a highly scalable cloud networking platform that uses software to address the needs of large-scale Internet companies, cloud service providers, financial services organizations, government agencies and media and entertainment companies, including virtualization, big data and low-latency applications. As a result, our cloud networking platform does not have the inherent limitations of legacy network architectures.
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Broad and Differentiated Portfolio.
Using multiple silicon architectures, we deliver switches and routers with industry-leading capacity, low latency, port density and power efficiency and have innovated in areas such as deep packet buffers, embedded optics and reversible cooling. Our broad portfolio has allowed us to offer customers products that best match their specific requirements.
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Single Binary Image Software.
The single binary image of EOS software allows us to maintain feature consistency across our entire product portfolio and enables us to introduce new software innovations into the market that become available to our entire installed base without a “forklift upgrade” (i.e., a broad upgrade of the data center infrastructure).
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Rapid Development of New Features and Applications.
Our highly modular EOS software has allowed us to rapidly deliver new features and applications while preserving the structural integrity and quality of our network operating system. We believe our ability to deliver new features and capabilities more quickly than legacy switch/router operators, provides us with a strategic advantage given that the requirements in cloud and next-generation data center networking continue to evolve rapidly.
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Deep Understanding of Customer Requirements.
We have developed close working relationships with many of our largest customers that provide us with insights about their needs and future requirements. This has allowed us to develop and deliver products to market that meet customer demands and expectations as well as to rapidly grow sales to existing customers.
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Strong Management and Engineering Team with Significant Data Center Networking Expertise.
Our management and engineering team consists of networking veterans with extensive data center networking expertise. Our President and Chief Executive Officer, Jayshree Ullal, with 30+ years of networking expertise from silicon to systems companies. Andy Bechtolsheim, our Founder and Chief Development Officer, was previously a Founder and chief system architect at Sun Microsystems. Kenneth Duda, our Founder and Chief Technology Officer, led the software development effort of EOS.
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Significant Technology Lead.
We believe that our networking technology represents a fundamental advance in networking software. Our EOS software is state-driven and the result of more than 1,000 man-years of research and development investment over a ten-year period with 10+ million lines of code as a key cloud networking software stack.
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Our Products and Technology
We offer one of the broadest product lines of data center 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers in the industry, comprising our 7010/7020 Series, 7050X Series, 7060X Series, 7160 Series, 7150 Series, 7250X Series, 7260 Series, 7280R Series Universal Leaf products, 7300X Series Spline products, and our 7500R Series Universal Spine products.
We deliver routing and switching platforms with industry-leading capacity, low latency, port density and power efficiency. We have also innovated in areas such as deep packet buffers, embedded optics and reversible cooling. Our products have been recognized with a number of awards, including the Best of Interop Grand Prize that was given to our industry-leading spine switch, the Arista 7500 Series, in 2010 and again, to the Arista 7500E Series, in 2013. An overview of our switching/routing portfolio is shown in the figure below.
We use multiple silicon architectures across our products, which allows us to build a broader range of products optimized for different functions in the network than competitors that utilize fewer silicon architectures. While we use multiple silicon architectures, all of our platforms are powered with the same binary EOS image, which significantly simplifies deployment and ensures the same rich feature set and consistent operation across all our products.
Our Extensible Operating System
The core of our cloud networking platform is our Extensible Operating System, or EOS, which runs on top of standard Linux and offers programmability at all layers of the stack. All of our 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet platforms run our EOS software.
EOS is based on a new and innovative architecture that is highly modular and consists of more than 100 separate processes that we call agents, each one handling specific protocol processing, device driver or system management functions. Each agent runs in user space as a separate Linux process and is completely protected and isolated from all other agents.
We are constantly investing in our core infrastructure to provide the capabilities required for building modern cloud networks and enhancing scalability. New requirements for use in cloud and service provider networks and hybrid cloud deployments in enterprises require on-going upgrades and extensions to our state oriented architecture.
EOS Attributes
The modular and programmable architecture of EOS enables us to offer a set of attributes, capabilities and features that are essential for cloud networking and next-generation data centers.
High Availability
EOS is self-healing in the sense that individual processes can be restarted without impacting application traffic. This architectural design principle supports self-healing resiliency in our software, easier software maintenance and module independence, higher software quality overall, and faster time-to-market for new features that customers require.
Programmable at All Layers
EOS is programmable at all layers from the Linux kernel to switch configuration, provisioning, automation and detailed monitoring of the network. Public cloud providers have leveraged tools such as the EOS Software Development Kit ("SDK") and eAPI to implement fully customized infrastructure automation solutions.
Workflow Visibility
Through EOS, we have developed a wide range of applications available to our customers for purchase as additional licenses that enable enhanced network monitoring and visibility without requiring additional external monitoring devices. This includes (i) DataANalyZer (DANZ), which provides access to raw network data for analysis by security, troubleshooting and performance management tools, (ii) Latency/loss ANalyZer (LANZ), which provides access to internal network performance loads and packet loss and latency occurring at the microsecond level, (iii) Network Telemetry, which provides network state information including correlations with dynamic state of the systems operating on the network such as Hypervisors, distributed job controls and (iv) Network Tracers, which provide active integration and diagnostics for various workload conditions dependent upon network performance.
Network Automation
EOS supports Puppet, Chef and Ansible, which enables automatic network configuration in the same manner as servers and storage. In addition, EOS provides tools that greatly reduce network operational costs. Another major component of network automation is Cloud Vision.
CloudVision
CloudVision’s abstraction of the physical network to a broader, network-wide perspective allows for a more efficient approach for several operational use-cases, including the following highlights:
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Centralized representation of distributed network state, allowing for a single point of integration and network-wide visibility and analytics;
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Controller agnostic support for physical and virtual workload orchestration through open APIs such as OVSDB, JSON and Openstack plugins;
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Turn-key automation for zero touch provisioning, configuration management and network-wide upgrades and rollback;
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Compliance Dashboard for Security, Audit and patch management;
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Real-time Streaming for Telemetry and Network Analytics, a modern approach to replace legacy polling per device;
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Provides visibility and troubleshooting for underlay and overlay networks; and
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Enables Macro-Segmentation Services which provides a dynamic and scalable network service to logically insert security devices into the path of traffic, regardless of whether the security device or workload is physical or virtual and with complete flexibility on placement of security devices and workloads.
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Containerized EOS
Arista cEOS™ is a containerized packaging of EOS software and its agents for deployment in cloud infrastructure with the same proven EOS software image that runs on all of our products. These flexible deployment options empower cloud network operators that are customizing their operating environments to provide a uniform workflow for development, testing and deployment of differentiated services. It enables the provisioning of a robust and proven network operating system across production and development platforms with a uniform EOS distribution and single-image consistency. Our customers can also utilize cEOS in tandem with industry standard white box hardware and enable a wide array of tools and applications from the container ecosystem.
Arista vEOS Router
The Arista vEOS Router is a core component of Arista Any Cloud Platform. The vEOS Router is our same, proven single EOS software image, offered as a multi-cloud and multi-hypervisor virtual router. This cloud-grade and feature-rich software platform empowers enterprises and service providers to build consistent, highly secure and scalable cloud networks. The Arista vEOS router is designed to support any public or hybrid cloud environment, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure Cloud, Microsoft Azure Stack, Google Cloud Platform, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Leaf-Spine Network Designs
Our customers typically deploy leaf-spine network topologies consisting of leaf switches or top-of-rack switches, located in the server rack connected with uplinks to multiple load-sharing spine switches and routers that provide the backbone. Our leaf-spine network designs scale up to more than 300,000 physical servers and millions of virtual machines using Equal Cost Multiple Path, or ECMP, to load balance Layer 3 network traffic across multiple spine switches and routers. With Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation, or MLAG, we can build an active-active Layer 2 network that can connect more than 25,000 physical servers. Our leaf-spine network designs have been widely deployed and provide predictable network bandwidth and latency. A key advantage of predictable network performance is that it eliminates the need to optimize the network for specific applications, which means a single network design works equally well for all applications.
Enterprise resources commonly span multiple datacenters or Performance Optimized Datacenters or PODs within a data center, including the public cloud. The drive to deliver resources quickly, affordably, and reliably also drives the need for a flexible, cost-effective, scale-out design at the datacenter core, which we refer to as the “spine of spines” or Universal Spine. The Universal Spine is non-blocking, supports large scale ECMP, IP routing and routing convergence. The Universal Spine enables architects to build the network around the spine and collapse legacy networking layers into the Universal Spine.
Examples of our leaf-spine and universal leaf-spine architectures are illustrated below.
Any Cloud Platform for Hybrid Cloud Networking
The Arista Any Cloud software platform is intended to reduce operational costs and complexity for enterprises by simplifying integration and management of hybrid clouds across private cloud datacenters and public cloud providers. The new virtualized offering and Arista vEOS™ Router, combined with CloudVision® and Cloud Tracer™ functionality, provides consistent operations, orchestration, security and telemetry across multi-cloud environments.
The Arista Any Cloud platform is designed to support any public or hybrid cloud environment, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, Microsoft Azure Stack, an extension of Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Support in each environment is coupled with validation and registration of these solutions in the cloud marketplace infrastructure provided by each cloud provider, thus making deployment simple for the enterprise customer.
This platform will be further enhanced by integration with the Equinix Cloud Exchange™, which provides direct high-performance connections to 70+ cloud providers.
Cloud Principles Migrate Enterprise from PINs to PICs
With the Arista Any Cloud solution, enterprise customers can now deploy a reliable and secure multi-cloud experience with a common Universal Cloud Network approach across all of the places-in-the-cloud (PICs) as opposed to siloed Places-In-the-Network (PINs) of the legacy enterprise. This enables IT organizations to harness dispersed cloud resources anywhere for better availability of services and applications across any cloud, any workload and any location.
Customer Support and Services
We have designed our customer support offerings to provide our customers with high levels of support. Our global team of support engineers engages directly with client IT teams and is available at all times over e-mail, by phone or through our website.
We offer multiple service options that allow our customers to select the product replacement service level that best meets their needs. We stock spare parts in over 125 locations around the world through our third-party logistics suppliers. All of our service options include unlimited access to bug-fixes, new feature-releases, online case management and our community forums.
Sales and Marketing
We market and sell our products through our direct sales force and in partnership with our channel partners, including distributors, value-added resellers, systems integrators and OEM partners. We also sell in conjunction with various technology partners. To facilitate channel coordination and increase productivity, we have created a partner program, the Arista Partner Program, to engage partners who provide value-added services and extend our reach into the marketplace. Authorized training partners perform technical training of our channel partners and end customers. Our partners commonly receive an order from an end customer prior to placing an order with us,
and we confirm the identification of the end customer prior to accepting such orders. Our partners generally do not stock inventory received from us.
Our sales organization is supported by systems engineers with deep technical expertise and responsibility for pre-sales technical support and solutions engineering for our end customers, systems integrators, original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, and channel partners. A pool of shared channel sales and marketing representatives also supports these teams. Each sales team is responsible for a geographical territory, has responsibility for a number of major direct end-customer accounts or has assigned accounts in a specific vertical market. We have field sales teams operating in approximately
80
countries.
Our marketing activities consist primarily of technology conferences, web marketing, trade shows, product demonstrations, seminars and events, public relations, analyst relations, demand generation and direct marketing to build our brand, increase end-customer awareness, communicate our product advantages and generate qualified leads for our field sales force and channel partners.
Research and Development
We believe our future success depends on our ability to develop new products and features that address the needs of our end customers. Our in-house engineering personnel are responsible for the development, quality, documentation, support and release of our products. We plan to continue to invest significantly in resources to conduct our research and development efforts. Our research and development expense was
$349.6 million
,
$273.6 million
and
$209.4 million
in 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively.
Manufacturing
We subcontract the manufacturing of all of our products to various contract manufacturers. Our primary manufacturing partners are Jabil Circuit, Sanmina Corporation and Foxconn. This approach allows us to reduce our costs, manufacturing overhead and inventory position and allows us to adjust more quickly to changing end-customer demand. We require all of our manufacturing locations to be ISO-9001 certified. Our EOS software is installed on our products at one of three direct fulfillment facilities.
Our contract manufacturing partners procure the majority of the components needed to build our products and assemble our products according to our design specifications. This allows us to leverage the purchasing power of our contract manufacturing partners. We retain complete control over the bill of material, test procedures and quality assurance programs. Our on-site personnel work closely with our partners and review on an ongoing basis forecasts, inventory levels, processes, capacity, yields and overall quality. Our contract manufacturing partners procure components and assemble our products based on our demand forecasts. These forecasts represent our estimates of future demand for our products based upon historical trends and analyses from our sales and product management functions as adjusted for overall market conditions. We update these forecasts monthly.
Our products rely on key components, including merchant silicon, integrated circuit components and power supplies purchased from a limited number of suppliers, including certain sole source providers. Generally, neither our contract manufacturers nor we have a written agreement with these component providers to guarantee the supply of the key components used in our products nor do we have exclusive rights to such key components. Our product development efforts also depend upon continued collaboration with our key suppliers, including our merchant silicon vendors such as Broadcom and Intel. As we develop our product roadmap and continue to expand our relationships with these and other merchant silicon vendors, it is critical that we work in tandem with our key merchant silicon vendors to ensure that their silicon includes improved features and that our products take advantage of such improved features. This enables us to focus our research and development resources on software core competencies and to leverage the investments made by merchant silicon vendors to achieve cost-effective solutions.
Once the completed products are manufactured and tested, our contract manufacturing partners ship them to various theatre direct fulfillment facilities in the United States, the Netherlands and Singapore for final configuration, quality control inspection and shipment to our distribution partners and end customers. After the products are shipped to our end customers, our products are installed by the end customers or by third-party service providers such as system integrators or value added resellers on their behalf.
Backlog
We do not have any long-term purchase commitments from customers. Customers generally order products on an as-needed basis with short lead and delivery times on a per-purchase-order basis. We maintain substantial finished goods inventory to ensure that products can generally be shipped shortly after receipt of an order. A significant portion of our customer shipments in any fiscal year relate to orders received and shipped in that fiscal year. Our customers utilize purchase orders containing non-binding purchase commitments and we allow customers to cancel, change or reschedule orders without penalty at any time prior to shipment, and as a result we do not believe backlog is firm. Due to the foregoing factors, backlog is not a meaningful indicator in any given period of our ability to achieve any particular level of overall revenue or financial performance.
Competition
The markets in which we compete are highly competitive and characterized by rapidly changing technology, changing end-customer needs, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and services. We expect competition to intensify in the future as the market for cloud networking expands and existing competitors and new market entrants introduce new products or enhance existing products.
The data center networking market has been historically dominated by Cisco Systems, with competition also coming from other large network equipment and system vendors, including Broadcom/Brocade, Dell/EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. Most of our competitors have made acquisitions and/or have entered into or extended partnerships or other strategic relationships to offer more comprehensive product lines, including cloud networking solutions. For example, in the last few years alone,
Broadcom acquired Brocade, Extreme Networks purchased certain data center networking assets from Broadcom/Brocade and Avaya, Dell acquired Force10 and EMC, IBM acquired Blade Network Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired Aruba Networks, Juniper acquired Contrail, and Cisco acquired Insieme
. We also face competition from other companies and new market entrants, including “whitebox” switch vendors as well as current technology partners and end customers who may develop network switches and cloud service solutions for internal use and/or to broaden their portfolio of products.
The principal competitive factors applicable to our products include:
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breadth of product offerings and features;
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reliability and product quality;
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total cost of ownership, including automation, monitoring and integration costs;
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programmability and extensibility;
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interoperability with other products;
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ability to be bundled with other vendor offerings; and
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quality of service, support and fulfillment.
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We believe our products compete favorably with respect to these factors. Our EOS software offers high reliability, integrates with existing network protocols and is open and programmable. We believe the combination of EOS, a set of network applications and our 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet platforms make our offering highly competitive for both cloud and enterprise data centers. However, many of our competitors have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, larger sales and marketing budgets and resources, broader distribution and established relationships with channel partners and end customers, greater access to larger end-customer bases, greater end-customer support resources, greater manufacturing resources, the ability to leverage their sales efforts across a broader portfolio of products, the ability to leverage purchasing power when purchasing subcomponents, the ability to bundle competitive offerings with other products and services, the ability to develop their own silicon chips, the ability to set more aggressive pricing policies, lower labor and development costs, greater resources to make acquisitions, larger intellectual property portfolios and substantially greater financial, technical, research and development or other resources.
Intellectual Property
Our success and ability to compete depend substantially upon our core technology and intellectual property. We rely on patent, trademark and copyright laws, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements with our employees, end customers, resellers, systems integrators and others to protect our intellectual property rights. We file U.S and foreign patent applications to protect our intellectual property and believe that the duration of our issued patents is adequate relative to the expected lives of our products.
We cannot assure you that any of our patent applications will result in the issuance of a patent or whether the examination process will result in patents of valuable breadth or applicability. In addition, any patents that may be issued may be contested, circumvented, found unenforceable or invalidated, and we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing them. We also license software from third parties for integration into our products, including open source software and other software available on commercially reasonable terms. We also own a number of trademarks in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, including Arista, EOS, CloudVision, CloudStream, CVP, CVX, Health Tracer, MapReduce Tracer, Path Tracer, MXP, MSS, RAIL, Score, SPLINE, SuperSpine, SSU, FlexRoute, NetRollBack, NetDB, OSFP, AlgoMatch, Macro-Segmentation, Macro-Segmentation Service.
We control access to and use of our software, technology and other proprietary information through internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, end customers and partners. Our software is protected by U.S. and international copyright, patent and trade secret laws. Despite our efforts to protect our software, technology and other proprietary information, unauthorized parties may still copy or otherwise obtain and use our software, technology and other proprietary information. In addition, we intend to expand our international operations, and effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may not be available or may be limited in foreign countries.
Our industry is characterized by the existence of a large number of patents and frequent claims and related litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. If we become more successful, we believe that competitors will be more likely to try to develop products that are similar to ours and that may infringe our proprietary rights. It may also be more likely that competitors or other third parties will claim that our products infringe their proprietary rights. In particular, large and established companies in our industry have extensive patent portfolios and are regularly involved in both offensive and defensive litigation. From time to time, third parties, including certain of these large companies and non-practicing entities, may assert patent, copyright, trademark and other intellectual
property rights against us, our channel partners or our end customers, whom our standard license and other agreements obligate us to indemnify against such claims. For example, in December 2014, Cisco Systems filed two lawsuits against us in the Northern District of California for alleged patent and copyright infringement. Additionally, Cisco Systems filed two complaints against us in the United States International Trade Commission ("USITC") for patent infringement, and the USITC has initiated an investigation. Please see "Legal Proceedings" included in Part I, Item 3 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, for a description of this litigation.
Furthermore, to comply with the limited exclusion order and cease and desist order in the 945 Investigation as described in Note 5. Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we have made design changes to our products for sale in the United States to address the features that were found to infringe the patent claims underlying the remedial orders in the 945 Investigation. We have also worked closely with our customers on the qualification and testing of our redesigned products. The timing of completion of these qualification activities, some of which have extended beyond the current quarter, has impacted our business with these customers in these quarters. We will continue to work with these customers to complete these procedures and improve these design changes with further product modifications in order to meet customer requirements.
We also filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the "CAFC") requesting that it stay the orders issued by the United States International Trade Commission (“USITC”) in the 945 Investigation pending completion of the appeals of the decisions of the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) finding invalid the claims of the patents the USITC found us to infringe in the 945 Investigation. On September 22, 2017, the CAFC denied the motion to stay, but has allowed us to import our redesigned products into the United States without being blocked by the USITC’s orders, subject to any determinations by the USITC in subsequent proceedings regarding the redesigned products. The CAFC has also granted our requests to expedite various phases of the appeals of the PTAB’s decisions. On October 27, 2017, the USITC instituted a modification proceeding to determine whether our redesigned products infringe the patent claims underlying the remedial orders in the 945 Investigation. The USITC has set a deadline of five months for the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) to issue a recommended determination, which may be extended by one month upon a showing of good cause. The recommended determination will be subject to review by the Commission after which the Commission will issue a final determination. The Commission has not set a target date for the final determination.
Successful claims of infringement by a third party, if any, could prevent us from distributing certain products or performing certain services, require us to expend time and money to develop non-infringing solutions or force us to pay substantial damages, royalties or other fees. We cannot assure you that we do not currently infringe, or that we will not in the future infringe, upon any third-party patents or other proprietary rights.
Employees
As of
December 31, 2017
, we employed approximately
1,800
full-time employees. None of our employees are represented by unions. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good and have not experienced significant interruptions of operations due to labor disagreements.
Segment and Geographic Information
We are organized and operate as one reportable segment, with
72.4%
of our total revenue from the Americas,
18.2%
from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (“EMEA”), and
9.4%
from the Asia Pacific region in
2017
. Refer to Note 9. Segment Information of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information about segments and revenue and assets by geographic region.
Corporate Information
We were incorporated in the State of California as Arastra, Inc. in October 2004. We reincorporated in the State of Nevada in March 2008, and we changed our name to Arista Networks, Inc. in October 2008. We reincorporated in the State of Delaware in March 2014.
Available Information
Our website is located at www.arista.com and our investor relations website is located at investors.arista.com. Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), are available free of charge on the Investors portion of our web site as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Further, a copy of this Annual Report on Form 10-K is located at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20549. Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room can be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.
Webcasts of our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community are on our investor relations website. Additionally, we announce investor information, including news and commentary about our business and financial performance, SEC filings, notices of investor events, and our press and earnings releases, on our investor relations website. Investors and others can receive notifications of new information posted on our investor relations website in real time by signing up for email alerts and RSS feeds. Further corporate governance information, including our corporate governance guidelines, board committee
charters, and code of conduct, is also available on our investor relations website under the heading “Governance.” The contents of our websites, or information that can be accessed through our websites, are not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which could materially affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. The risks described below are not the only risks facing us. Risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial also may materially affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry
Our business and operations have experienced rapid growth, and if we do not appropriately manage any future growth or are unable to improve our systems and processes, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be adversely affected.
We have experienced rapid growth and increased demand for our products over the last several years, which has placed a strain on our management, administrative, operational and financial infrastructure. Our employee headcount and number of end customers have increased, and we expect both to continue to grow over the next year. For example, between December 31,
2011
and
December 31, 2017
, our headcount grew from approximately
250
employees to approximately
1,800
employees, and our cumulative number of end customers grew from approximately
1,100
to over
4,900
. As we have grown, we have had to manage an increasingly large and more complex array of internal systems and processes to scale with all aspects of our business, including our hardware and software development, contract manufacturing, purchasing, logistics, fulfillment and maintenance and support. Our success will depend in part upon our ability to manage our growth effectively. To do so, we must continue to increase the productivity of our existing employees and continue to hire, train and manage new employees as needed. To manage domestic and international growth of our operations and personnel, we will need to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls and our reporting processes and procedures and implement more extensive and integrated financial and business information systems. We may not be able to successfully implement these or other improvements to our systems and processes in an efficient or timely manner, and we may discover deficiencies in their capabilities or effectiveness. We may experience difficulties in managing improvements to our systems and processes or in connection with third-party technology. In addition, our systems and processes may not prevent or detect all errors, omissions or fraud. Our failure to improve our systems and processes, or their failure to operate effectively and in the intended manner, may result in disruption of our current operations and end-customer relationships, our inability to manage the growth of our business and our inability to accurately forecast our revenue, expenses and earnings and prevent certain losses.
Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects and may increase the risk associated with your investment.
We shipped our first products in 2008 and the majority of our revenue growth has occurred since the beginning of 2010. Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and our future prospects, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by rapidly growing companies in constantly evolving industries, including the risks described elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. If we do not address these risks successfully, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be adversely affected, and the market price of our common stock could decline. Further, we have limited historical financial data, and we operate in a rapidly evolving market. As such, any predictions about our future revenue and expenses may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a longer operating history or operated in a more predictable market.
Our revenue growth rate in recent periods may not be indicative of our future performance.
Our revenue growth rate in recent periods may not be indicative of our future performance. We experienced annual revenue growth rates of
45.8%
,
34.8%
, and
43.4%
in 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. We may not achieve similar revenue growth rates in future periods as the size of our customer base increases, we achieve higher market penetration in our current target market and we continue to enter and expand into new target markets. Other factors may also contribute to declines in our growth rates, including changes in demand for our products and services, increased competition, our ability to successfully manage our expansion or continue to capitalize on growth opportunities, the maturation of our business and general economic conditions. You should not rely on our revenue for any prior quarterly or annual period as an indication of our future revenue or revenue growth. If we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially adversely affected.
Our results of operations are likely to vary significantly from period to period and be unpredictable and if we fail to meet the expectations of analysts or investors or our previously issued financial guidance, or if any forward-looking financial guidance does not meet the expectation of analysts or investors, the market price of our common stock could decline substantially
Our results of operations have historically varied from period to period, and we expect that this trend will continue. As a result, you should not rely upon our past financial results for any period as indicators of future performance. Our results of operations in any
given period can be influenced by a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control and may be difficult to predict, including:
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our ability to increase sales to existing customers and attract new end customers, including large end customers;
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the budgeting cycles, purchasing practices and buying patterns of end customers, including large end customers who may receive lower pricing terms due to volume discounts and who may or may not make large bulk purchases in certain quarters;
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changes in end-customer, geographic or product mix;
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the cost and potential outcomes of existing and future litigation, including Cisco and Optumsoft litigation matters including our ability to comply with any USITC remedial orders issued in connection with the Cisco litigation;
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our ability to develop, market and sell new products and services that are acceptable to our customers including redesigned products that comply with any USITC remedial orders issued in connection with the Cisco litigation;
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changes in the sales and implementation cycles for our products including the qualification and testing of our redesigned products by our customers and any delays or cancellations of purchases caused by such activities;
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the rate of expansion and productivity of our sales force;
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changes in our pricing policies, whether initiated by us or as a result of competition;
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our inability to fulfill our end customers’ orders due to the availability of inventory, supply chain delays, access to key commodities or technologies or events that impact our manufacturers or their suppliers;
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the amount and timing of operating costs and capital expenditures related to the operation and expansion of our business;
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changes in end-customer, distributor or reseller requirements or market needs;
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deferral or cancellation of orders from end customers, including in anticipation of new products or product enhancements announced by us or our competitors, or warranty returns;
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the inclusion of any acceptance provisions in our customer contracts or any delays in acceptance of those products;
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changes in the growth rate of the networking market;
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the actual or rumored timing and success of new product and service introductions by us or our competitors or any other change in the competitive landscape of our industry, including consolidation among our competitors or end customers;
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our ability to successfully expand our business domestically and internationally;
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our ability to increase the size of our sales or distribution channel, any disruption in our sales or distribution channels, and/or termination of our relationship with important channel partners;
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decisions by potential end customers to purchase cloud networking solutions from larger, more established vendors, white box vendors or their primary network equipment vendors;
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insolvency or credit difficulties confronting our end customers, which could adversely affect their ability to purchase or pay for our products and services, or confronting our key suppliers, including our sole source suppliers, which could disrupt our supply chain;
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seasonality or cyclical fluctuations in our markets;
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future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies;
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stock-based compensation expense;
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our overall effective tax rate, including impacts caused by any reorganization in our corporate structure, any changes in our valuation allowance for domestic deferred tax assets and any new legislation or regulatory developments, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the "Tax Act");
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increases or decreases in our expenses caused by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, as an increasing portion of our expenses are incurred and paid in currencies other than the U.S. dollar;
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general economic conditions, both domestically and in foreign markets; and
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other risk factors described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
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Any one of the factors above or the cumulative effect of several of the factors described above may result in significant fluctuations in our financial and other results of operations. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet our revenue, gross margins, results of operations or other expectations contained in any forward looking financial guidance we have issued or the expectations of securities analysts or investors for a particular period. If we fail to meet or exceed such guidance or expectations for these or any other reasons, the market price of our common stock could decline substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.
The cloud networking market is rapidly evolving. If this market does not evolve as we anticipate or our target end customers do not adopt our cloud networking solutions, we may not be able to compete effectively, and our ability to generate revenue will suffer.
A substantial portion of our business and revenue depends on the growth and evolution of the cloud networking market. The market demand for cloud networking solutions has increased in recent years as end customers have deployed larger, more sophisticated networks and have increased the use of virtualization and cloud computing. The continued growth of this market will be dependent upon many factors including but not limited to the adoption of our end customers’ products and services, the expansion, evolution and build out of our end customers’ networks, the overcapacity of existing network infrastructures, changes in the technological requirements for the products and services to be deployed in these networks, the amount and mix of capital spending by our end customers, the financial performance and prospects of our end customers, the availability of capital resources to our end customers, changes in government regulation that could impact cloud networking business models including those regulations related to cyber security, privacy, data protection and net neutrality, our ability to provide cloud networking solutions that address the needs of end customers more effectively and economically than those of other competitors or existing technologies and general economic conditions.
If the cloud networking solutions market does not develop in the way we anticipate, if our solutions do not offer benefits compared to competing networking products or if end customers do not recognize the benefits that our solutions provide, then our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially adversely affected.
If we are unable to attract new large end customers or to sell additional products to our existing end customers, our revenue growth will be adversely affected and our revenue could decrease.
To increase our revenue, we must add new end customers and large end customers and sell additional products to existing end customers. For example, one of our sales strategies is to target specific projects at our current end customers because they are familiar with the operational and economic benefits of our solutions, thereby reducing the sales cycle into these customers. We believe this opportunity with current end customers to be significant given their existing infrastructure and expected future spend. If we fail to attract new large end customers or fail to reduce the sales cycle and sell additional products to our existing end customers, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be harmed.
We expect large purchases by a limited number of end customers to continue to represent a substantial portion of our revenue, and any loss or delay of expected purchases could result in material quarter-to-quarter fluctuations of our revenue or otherwise adversely affect our results of operations.
Historically, large purchases by a relatively limited number of end customers have accounted for a significant portion of our revenue, particularly in the cloud networking market. Many of these end customers make large purchases to complete or upgrade specific data center installations and are typically made on a purchase-order basis rather than pursuant to long-term contracts. Revenue from sales to Microsoft, through our channel partner, World Wide Technology, Inc., accounted for
16%
,
16%
and
12%
of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.
As a consequence of the concentrated nature of our customer base and their purchasing behavior, our quarterly revenue and results of operations may fluctuate from quarter to quarter and are difficult to estimate. Changes in the business requirements or focus, vendor selection, project prioritization, financial prospects, capital resources and expenditures or purchasing behavior of our key end customers could significantly decrease our sales to such end customers or could lead to delays or cancellations of planned purchases of our products or services. For example, some of our end customers continue to qualify and test our redesigned products to ensure that they meet network requirements, and failure to obtain such qualification or customer acceptance, any cancellation of orders or any acceleration or delay in anticipated product purchases or the acceptance of shipped products by these customers could materially affect our revenue and results of operations in any quarterly period. We may be unable to sustain or increase our revenue from our large end customers or offset the discontinuation of concentrated purchases by our larger end customers with purchases by new or existing end customers. We expect that such concentrated purchases will continue to contribute materially to our revenue for the foreseeable future and that our results of operations may fluctuate materially as a result of such larger end customers’ buying patterns. In addition, we may see consolidation of our customer base, such as among Internet companies and cloud service providers, which could result in loss of end customers. The loss of such end customers, or a significant delay or reduction in their purchases, could materially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Some of our large end customers require more favorable terms and conditions from their vendors and may request price concessions. As we seek to sell more products to these end customers, we may be required to agree to terms and conditions that may have an adverse effect on our business or ability to recognize revenue.
Our large end customers have significant purchasing power and, as a result, may receive more favorable terms and conditions than we typically provide to other end customers, including lower prices, bundled upgrades, extended warranties, acceptance terms, indemnification terms and extended return policies and other contractual rights. As we seek to sell more products to these large end customers, an increased mix of our shipments may be subject to such terms and conditions, which may reduce our margins or affect the timing of our revenue recognition and thus may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If we do not successfully anticipate technological shifts, market needs and opportunities, and develop products and product enhancements that meet those technological shifts, needs and opportunities, or if those products are not made available in a timely manner or do not gain market acceptance, we may not be able to compete effectively, and our ability to generate revenue will suffer.
We must continue to enhance our existing products and develop new technologies and products that address emerging technological trends, evolving industry standards and changing end-customer needs. The process of enhancing our existing products and developing new technology is complex and uncertain, and new offerings requires significant upfront investment that may not result in material design improvements to existing products or result in marketable new products or costs savings or revenue for an extended period of time, if at all. The success of new products depends on several factors, including appropriate new product definition, component costs, timely completion and introduction of these products, differentiation of new products from those of our competitors and market acceptance of these products.
In addition, new technologies could render our existing products obsolete or less attractive to end customers, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially adversely affected if such technologies are widely adopted. For example, end customers may prefer to address their network switch requirements by licensing software operating systems separately and placing them on industry-standard servers or develop their own networking products rather than purchasing integrated hardware products as has occurred in the server industry.
In the past several years, we have announced a number of new products and enhancements to our products and services. The success of our new products depends on several factors including, but not limited to, component costs, timely completion and introduction of these products, prompt solution of any defects or bugs in these products, our ability to support these products, differentiation of new products from those of our competitors and market acceptance of these products.
Our product releases introduced new software products that include the capability for disaggregation of our software operating systems from our hardware. The success of our strategy to expand our software business is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including the additional development efforts and costs to create these new products or make them compatible with other technologies, the potential for our strategy to negatively impact revenues and gross margins and additional costs associated with regulatory compliance.
We may not be able to successfully anticipate or adapt to changing technology or end-customer requirements on a timely basis, or at all. If we fail to keep up with technology changes or to convince our end customers and potential end customers of the value of our solutions even in light of new technologies, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially adversely affected.
To remain competitive, we must successfully manage product introductions and transitions.
Our ability to continue to compete effectively in a rapidly evolving market requires that we successfully release new products that meet the increasingly sophisticated networking requirements of our end customers. The success of new product introductions will depend on a number of factors including, but not limited to, timely and successful product development, market acceptance of our new products, our ability to manage the risks associated with new product production ramp-up issues, the timely development and availability of new merchant silicon chips from our suppliers, the effective management of purchase commitments and inventory in line with anticipated product demand, the availability of products in appropriate quantities and costs to meet anticipated demand, and the risk that new products may have quality or other defects or deficiencies in the early stages of introduction. For example, our new product releases will require strong execution from our third party merchant silicon chip suppliers to develop and release new merchant silicon chips that satisfy end-customer requirements, to meet expected release schedules and to provide sufficient quantities of these components. If we are unable to successfully manage our product introductions or transitions as a result of any of these or other factors, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be adversely affected.
We face intense competition, especially from larger, well-established companies, and we may lack sufficient financial or other resources to maintain or improve our competitive position.
The market for data center networking, including the market for cloud networking, is intensely competitive, and we expect competition to increase in the future from established competitors and new market entrants. This competition could result in increased pricing pressure, reduced profit margins, increased sales and marketing expenses and our failure to increase, or the loss of, market share, any of which would likely seriously harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
The data center networking market has been historically dominated by Cisco Systems, with competition also coming from other large network equipment and system vendors, including Broadcom/Brocade, Dell/EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. Most of our competitors have made acquisitions and/or have entered into or extended partnerships or other strategic relationships to offer more comprehensive product lines, including cloud networking solutions. For example, in the last few years alone,
Broadcom acquired Brocade, Extreme Networks purchased certain data center networking assets from Broadcom/Brocade and Avaya, Dell acquired Force10 and EMC, IBM acquired Blade Network Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired Aruba Networks, Juniper acquired Contrail, and Cisco acquired Insieme
. We also face competition from other companies and new market entrants, including "white box" switch vendors as well as current technology partners and end customers who may develop network switches and cloud service solutions
for internal use and/or to broaden their portfolio of products. Many of our existing and potential competitors enjoy substantial competitive advantages, such as:
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greater name recognition and longer operating histories;
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larger sales and marketing budgets and resources;
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broader distribution and established relationships with channel partners and end customers;
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greater access to larger end-customer bases;
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greater end-customer support resources;
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greater manufacturing resources;
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the ability to leverage their sales efforts across a broader portfolio of products;
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the ability to leverage purchasing power with vendor subcomponents;
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the ability to bundle competitive offerings with other products and services;
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the ability to develop their own silicon chips;
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the ability to set more aggressive pricing policies including bundling of products that are competitive with ours with other products that we do not sell or with support service contracts;
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lower labor and development costs;
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greater resources to make acquisitions;
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larger intellectual property portfolios; and
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substantially greater financial, technical, research and development or other resources.
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Our competitors also may be able to provide end customers with capabilities or benefits different from or greater than those we can provide in areas such as technical qualifications or geographic presence or may be able to provide end customers a broader range of products, services and prices. In addition, large competitors may have more extensive relationships with and within existing and potential end customers that provide them with an advantage in competing for business with those end customers. For example, certain large competitors encourage end customers of their other products and services to adopt their data networking solutions through discounted bundled product packages. Our ability to compete will depend upon our ability to provide a better solution than our competitors at a more competitive price. We may be required to make substantial additional investments in research, development, marketing and sales in order to respond to competition, and we cannot assure you that these investments will achieve any returns for us or that we will be able to compete successfully in the future.
We also expect increased competition if our market continues to expand. Conditions in our market could change rapidly and significantly as a result of technological advancements or other factors. Current or potential competitors may be acquired by third parties that have greater resources available than we do. Our current or potential competitors might take advantage of the greater resources of the larger organization resulting from these acquisitions to compete more vigorously or broadly with us. In addition, continued industry consolidation might adversely affect end customers’ perceptions of the viability of smaller and even medium-sized networking companies and, consequently, end customers’ willingness to purchase from those companies. Further, certain large end customers may develop network switches and cloud service solutions for internal use and/or to broaden their portfolio of products, which could allow these end customers to become new competitors in the market.
Industry consolidation may lead to increased competition and may harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Most of our competitors have made acquisitions and/or have entered into or extended partnerships or other strategic relationships to offer more comprehensive product lines, including cloud networking solutions. For example, in the last few years alone,
Broadcom acquired Brocade, Extreme Networks purchased certain data center networking assets from Broadcom/Brocade and Avaya, Dell acquired Force10 and EMC, IBM acquired Blade Network Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired Aruba Networks, Juniper acquired Contrail, and Cisco acquired Insieme
.
Moreover, large system vendors are increasingly seeking to deliver top-to-bottom cloud networking solutions to end customers that combine cloud-focused hardware and software solutions to provide an alternative to our products.
We expect this trend to continue as companies attempt to strengthen their market positions in an evolving industry and as companies are acquired or are unable to continue operations. Companies that are strategic alliance partners in some areas of our business may acquire or form alliances with our competitors, thereby reducing their business with us. Industry consolidation may result in stronger competitors that are better able to compete with us, including any competitors that seek to become sole source vendors for end customers. This could lead to more variability in our results of operations and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We are currently involved in litigation with Cisco Systems, Inc.
We are currently involved in several litigation matters with Cisco Systems, Inc. These matters are summarized below.
Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Arista Networks, Inc. (Case No. 4:14-cv-05343) (“’43 Case”)
On December 5, 2014, Cisco filed a complaint against us in the District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that we infringe U.S. Patent Nos. 6,377,577; 6,741,592; 7,023,853; 7,061,875; 7,162,537; 7,200,145; 7,224,668; 7,290,164; 7,340,597; 7,460,492; 8,051,211; and 8,356,296 (respectively, “the ’577 patent,” “the ’592 patent,” “the ’853 patent,” “the 875 patent,” “the ’537 patent,” “the ’145 patent,” “the ’668 patent,” “the ’164 patent,” “the ’597 patent,” “the ’492 patent,” “the ’211 patent,” and “the ’296 patent”). Cisco seeks, as relief for our alleged infringement in the ’43 Case, lost profits and/or reasonable royalty damages in an unspecified amount, including treble damages, attorney’s fees, and associated costs. Cisco also seeks injunctive relief in the ’43 Case. On February 10, 2015, the Court granted our unopposed motion to stay the ’43 Case until the proceedings before the USITC pertaining to the same patents (as discussed below) became final. Trial has not been scheduled in the ’43 Case.
Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Arista Networks, Inc. (Case No. 5:14-cv-05344) (“’44 Case”)
On December 5, 2014, Cisco filed a complaint against us in the District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that we infringe numerous copyrights pertaining to Cisco’s “Command Line Interface” or “CLI” and U.S. Patent Nos. 7,047,526 and 7,953,886 (respectively, “the ’526 patent” and “the ’886 patent”). As relief for our alleged patent infringement in the ’44 Case, Cisco seeks lost profits and/or reasonable royalty damages in an unspecified amount including treble damages, attorney’s fees, and associated costs as well as injunctive relief. As relief for our alleged copyright infringement, Cisco seeks monetary damages for alleged lost profits, profits from our alleged infringement, statutory damages, attorney’s fees, and associated costs.
As described below, on May 25, 2016, our petition for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) of the ’886 patent was instituted by the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). Cisco subsequently agreed to dismiss its claims as to the ‘886 patent with prejudice.
On December 14, 2016, following a two-week trial, the jury found that we had proven our copyright defense of scenes a faire and that Cisco had failed to prove infringement of the ’526 patent, and on that basis, judgment was entered in our favor on all claims on December 19, 2016.
On January 17, 2017, Cisco filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence in support of our scenes a faire defense. Cisco did not file any post-trial motion regarding the ’526 patent, nor did it file a motion for a new trial. We also filed a conditional motion for judgment as a matter of law and/or for a new trial on several grounds, which would be at issue only if the court granted Cisco’s motion. The hearing on both parties’ motions was held on April 27, 2017. On May 10, 2017, the court denied Cisco’s motion and denied our motions as moot.
Cisco filed a notice of appeal on June 6, 2017, and the parties have submitted their appeal briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit. A hearing date has not yet been set.
Arista Networks, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (Case No. 5:16-cv-00923) (“’23 Case”)
On February 24, 2016, we filed a complaint against Cisco in the District Court for the Northern District of California alleging antitrust violations and unfair competition. On August 23, 2016, the Court granted Cisco’s motion to stay the ’23 Case until judgment was entered on Cisco’s copyright claims in the ’44 Case. On March 2, 2017, the Court lifted the stay and trial is set for August 3, 2018.
On March 23, 2017, Cisco filed a motion to dismiss our complaint in the ’23 Case. On October 10, 2017, the Court issued an order granting in part and denying in part Cisco’s motion to dismiss, with leave for us to amend to cure any deficiencies as to the claims that were dismissed.
Certain Network Devices, Related Software, and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-944) (“944 Investigation”)
On December 19, 2014, Cisco filed a complaint against us in the USITC alleging that we violated 19 U.S.C. § 1337 (“Section 337”). The USITC instituted Cisco’s complaint as Investigation No. 337-TA-944. Cisco initially alleged that certain of our switching products infringe the ’592, ’537, ’145, ’164, ’597, and ’296 patents. Cisco subsequently dropped the ’296 patent from the 944 Investigation. Cisco sought, among other things, a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of accused switch products (including our 7000 Series of switches) and components and software therein and a cease and desist order against us restricting our activities with respect to our imported accused switch products and components and software therein.
On February 2, 2016, the ALJ issued his initial determination finding a violation of Section 337. More specifically, the ALJ found that a violation has occurred in the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, or the sale within the United States after importation, of certain network devices, related software, and components thereof that the ALJ found infringed asserted claims 1, 2, 8-11, and 17-19 of the ’537 patent; asserted claims 6, 7, 20, and 21 of the ’592 patent; and asserted claims 5, 7, 45, and 46 of the ’145 patent. The ALJ did not find a violation of Section 337 with respect to any asserted claims of the ’597 and ’164 patents. On June 23, 2016, the Commission issued its Final Determination, which found a violation with respect to the ’537, ’592, and ’145 patents, and found no violation with respect to the ’597 and ’164 patents. The Commission also issued a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order pertaining to network devices, related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of claims 1, 2, 8-11, and 17-19 of the
’537 patent; claims 6, 7, 20, and 21 of the ’592 patent; and claims 5, 7, 45, and 46 of the ’145 patent. On August 22, 2016, the Presidential review period for the 944 Investigation expired. The USITC orders will be in effect until the expiration of the ’537, ’592, and ’145 patents.
Both we and Cisco filed petitions for review of the USITC’s Final Determination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”). The appeal was fully briefed and oral argument was held on June 6, 2017. On September 27, 2017, the Federal Circuit affirmed the USITC’s Final Determination.
On August 26, 2016, Cisco filed an enforcement complaint under Section 337 with the USITC. Cisco alleges that we are violating the cease and desist and limited exclusion orders issued in the 944 Investigation by engaging in the “marketing, distribution, offering for sale, selling, advertising, and/or aiding or abetting other entities in the sale and/or distribution of products that Cisco alleges continue to infringe claims 1-2, 8-11, and 17-19 of the ’537 patent,” despite the design changes we have made to those products. Cisco asks the USITC to (1) enforce the cease and desist order; (2) modify the Commission’s limited exclusion order and/or cease and desist order “in any manner that would assist in the prevention of the unfair practices that were originally the basis for issuing such Order or assist in the detection of violations of such Order”; (3) impose the maximum statutory civil penalties for violation of the cease and desist order “including monetary sanctions for each day’s violation of the cease and desist order of the greater of $100,000 or twice the domestic value of the articles entered or sold, whichever is higher”; (4) bring a civil action in U.S. district court “requesting collection of such civil penalties and the issuance of a mandatory injunction preventing further violation of Cease and Desist Order”; and (5) impose “such other remedies and sanctions as are appropriate and within the Commission’s authority.” On September 28, 2016, the Commission instituted the enforcement proceeding. The proceeding has been assigned to ALJ Shaw, who presided over the underlying investigation. The target date for the investigation was initially set for September 20, 2017. On June 20, 2017, the ALJ issued his initial determination finding that we did not violate the June 23, 2016 cease and desist order. The initial determination also recommended a civil penalty of $307 million if the Commission decided to overturn the finding of no violation. On July 3, 2017, the parties filed petitions for review of certain findings in the initial determination.
On August 4, 2017, the Commission issued an order remanding the investigation to the ALJ to make additional findings on certain issues and issue a remand initial determination. The Commission ordered the ALJ to set a schedule for completion of any necessary remand proceedings and a new target date for the enforcement action. On August 25, 2017 the ALJ issued an Initial Determination setting a June 4, 2018 deadline for the remand initial determination and September 4, 2018 as the new target date for the enforcement action. On September 18, 2017, the Commission determined not to review the Initial Determination setting the target date. The ALJ held a hearing on February 1, 2018.
Certain Network Devices, Related Software, and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-945) (“945 Investigation”)
On December 19, 2014, Cisco filed a complaint against us in the USITC alleging that we violated Section 337. The USITC instituted Cisco’s complaint as Investigation No. 337-TA-945. Cisco alleged that certain of our switching products infringe the ’577, ’853, ’875, ’668, ’492, and ’211 patents. Cisco sought, among other things, a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of accused switch products (including our 7000 Series of switches) related software, and components therein and a cease and desist order against us restricting our activities with respect to our imported accused switch products and components and software therein.
On December 9, 2016, the ALJ issued her initial determination finding a violation of Section 337. More specifically, the ALJ found that a violation has occurred in the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, or the sale within the United States after importation, of certain network devices, related software, and components thereof that the ALJ found infringe asserted claims 1, 7, 9, 10, and 15 of the ’577 patent and asserted claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 19, 56, and 64 of the ’668 patent. The ALJ did not find a violation of Section 337 with respect to asserted claim 2 of the ’577 patent or any asserted claims of the ’853, ’492, ’875, and ’211 patents.
On May 4, 2017, the Commission issued its Final Determination, which found a violation with respect to the ’577 and ’668 patents, and found no violation with respect to the ’211, ’853, ’875 and ’492 patents. The Commission also issued a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order pertaining to network devices, related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of claims 1, 7, 9, 10, and 15 of the ’577 patent and 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 18, 56, and 64 of the ’668 patent. On July 4, 2017, the 60-day Presidential review period for the 945 Investigation expired. During the 60-day Presidential review period, the USITC Orders permitted Arista to continue importing and selling products covered by the orders so long as we paid a 5% bond. Because the United States Trade Representative did not disapprove the USITC’s final determination, the limited exclusion order and cease and desist order are now in full effect.
On May 25, 2017 and June 1, 2017, the PTAB issued final written decisions finding all claims of the ’577 and ’668 patents that we were found to have infringed in the 945 Investigation unpatentable. On June 1, 2017 and June 2, 2017, we filed emergency petitions to suspend the remedial orders in the 945 Investigation. On July 20, 2017, the Commission issued a notice denying our petition to suspend the remedial orders. On July 21, 2017, we filed a motion to stay the remedial orders in the 945 Investigation pending disposition of the relevant appeals and sought expedited consideration of our motion. On September 11, 2017, the Commission denied our motion to stay.
On June 30, 2017, Cisco filed a petition for review of the USITC’s Final Determination to the Federal Circuit regarding the ’853, ’492, ’875 and ’211 patents. On July 21, 2017, we filed a petition for review of the Final Determination to the Federal Circuit.
On August 25, 2017 we filed a motion with the Federal Circuit requesting that the Federal Circuit stay the remedial orders pending the completion of the appeal of the 945 Investigation. On September 22, 2017, the Federal Circuit issued an order denying our
motion to stay, but ordered that our redesigned products be allowed to enter the country “unless and until Commission proceedings are initiated and completed to produce an enforceable determination that such a redesign is barred” by a Commission remedial order.
On September 27, 2017, Cisco filed a petition with the USITC requesting that the Commission institute a modification proceeding to determine whether our redesigned products infringe the patent claims underlying the remedial orders in the 945 Investigation. On October 27, 2017, the Commission instituted the modification proceeding. The proceeding has been assigned to ALJ McNamara, who presided over the underlying investigation. The Commission has set a deadline of five months for the ALJ to issue a recommended determination on what, if any, modifications to the remedial orders issued in the 945 Investigation are appropriate. This deadline may be extended by one month upon a showing of good cause. The recommended determination will be subject to review by the Commission after which the Commission will issue a final determination. The Commission has not set a target date for the final determination.
The hearing was held on January 26, 2018.
Inter Partes Reviews
We have filed petitions for Inter Partes Review of the ’597, ’211, ’668, ’853, ’537, ’577, ’886, and ’526 patents. IPRs relating to the ’597 (IPR No. 2015-00978) and ’211 (IPR No. 2015-00975) patents were instituted in October 2015 and hearings on these IPRs were completed in July 2016. On September 28, 2016, the PTAB issued a final written decision finding claims 1, 14, 39-42, 71, 72, 84, and 85 of the ’597 patent unpatentable. The PTAB also found that claims 29, 63, 64, 73, and 86 of the ’597 patent had not been shown to be unpatentable. On October 5, 2016, the PTAB issued a final written decision finding claims 1 and 12 of the ’211 patent unpatentable. The PTAB also found that claims 2, 6-9, 13, 17-20 of the ’211 patent had not been shown to be unpatentable. Both parties have appealed the final written decisions on the ’211 and ’537 patent IPRs. The hearing for the ’211 IPR appeal is set for March 2018.
The IPR relating to the ’886 patent was instituted on May 25, 2016. Following that decision, Cisco agreed to dismiss its claims as to the ʼ886 patent with prejudice, and we dismissed our counterclaims as to the ʼ886 patent without prejudice.
IPRs relating to the ’668 (IPR No. 2016-00309), ’577 (IPR No. 2016-00303), ’853 (IPR No. 2016-0306), and ’537 (IPR No. 2016-0308) patents were instituted in June 2016 and hearings were held on March 7, 2017. On May 25, 2017, the PTAB issued final written decisions finding claims 1, 7-10, 12-16, 18-22, 25, and 28-31 of ’577 patent unpatentable, and that claim 2 of the ’577 patent, claim 63 of the ’853 patent, and claims 1, 10, 19, and 21 of the ’537 patent had not been shown to be unpatentable. On June 1, 2017, the PTAB issued a final written decision finding claims 1-10, 12-13, 15-28, 30-31, 33-36, 55-64, 66-67, and 69-72 of the ’668 patent unpatentable. We filed a Notice of Appeal concerning the ’577 patent on July 21, 2017, and Notices of Appeal concerning the ‘853 and ’537 patents on July 26, 2017. Cisco cross-appealed concerning the ’577 patent on July 26, 2017 and filed a Notice of Appeal concerning the ’668 patent on August 1, 2017. For the appeals of the IPRs on the ’668 and ’577 patents, the Federal Circuit granted our motion for an expedited briefing schedule, and the hearings were held on February 9, 2018. On February 14, 2018, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s final written decision on the ’668 patent.
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We intend to vigorously defend against each of the Cisco lawsuits, as summarized in the preceding paragraphs. However, we cannot be certain that any claims by Cisco will be resolved in our favor regardless of the merit of the claims. Any adverse litigation ruling could result in injunctive relief and USITC remedial orders, including the above described injunctive relief, could lead to significant penalties assessed or damages awarded against us or a requirement that we make substantial royalty payments to Cisco, and/or could require that we modify our products.
For example, in the 944 Investigation, the USITC issued a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of our network devices (including our 7000 Series of switches), related software, and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ’537, ʼ592, and ʼ145 patents specified above and a cease and desist order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products. In the 945 Investigation, the USITC issued a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of our network devices, related software, and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ’577 and ’668 patents specified above and a cease and desist order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products.
To comply with these orders, we have sought to develop technical redesigns that no longer infringe the patents that are the subject of the orders. In any efforts to develop these technical redesigns for our products, we may be unable to do so in a manner that does not continue to infringe the patents or that is acceptable to our customers. Our redesign efforts could be extremely costly and time consuming as well as disruptive to our other development activities and distracting to management. Moreover, our ability to import redesigned products into the United States is based on rulings from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) and the Federal Circuit. While these favorable rulings currently allow us to import our redesigned products into the United States, the USITC could determine in an enforcement action or modification proceeding that our redesigned products continue to infringe the patents that are the subject of any USITC orders. In addition, the Federal Circuit or CBP could decide to withdraw or alter their rulings based on a change in circumstances. Any failure to effectively redesign our products, obtain customer acceptance of those redesigned products, retain authorization to import those redesigned products, or address the USITC findings in a manner that complies with the USITC orders, may cause a disruption to our product shipments, a rejection or return of our redesigned products by (or a delay or loss of sales to) customers, subject us to penalties or damage awards, and materially and adversely affect our business, revenues, prospects, reputation, results of operations, and financial condition.
Specifically, in response to the USITC’s findings in the 944 Investigation, we have made design changes to our products for sale in the United States to address the features that were found to infringe the ’537, ’592, and ’145 patents. Following the issuance of the final determination in the 944 Investigation, we submitted a Section 177 ruling request to CBP seeking approval to import these redesigned products into the United States. On November 18, 2016, we received a 177 ruling from CBP finding that our redesigned products did not infringe the relevant claims of the ʼ537, ’592, and ʼ145 patents, and approving the importation of those redesigned products into the United States. On January 13, 2017, at the request of Cisco and without our input, CBP issued a letter to us revoking its prior November 18 ruling. CBP subsequently conducted an inter partes proceeding between Arista and Cisco to determine whether our redesigned products infringe and whether to approve them for importation into the United States. On April 7, 2017, following the inter partes proceeding, CBP again ruled that our redesigned products do not infringe the relevant claims of the ’537, ’592, and ’145 patents and again approved those redesigns for importation into the United States. On September 12, 2017, Cisco filed a second request with CBP seeking to revoke our approval to import our redesigns relating to the 944 Investigation. We have opposed Cisco’s request, and CBP has not yet ruled on Cisco’s request.
Similarly, on May 4, 2017, the USITC issued a limited exclusion order and cease and desist order in the 945 Investigation with respect to the ’668 and ’577 patents. We have made design changes to our products for sale in the United States to address the features that were found to infringe the ’577 and ’668 patents. We are making ongoing modifications to our products to also ensure that they continue to meet customer requirements, and we are working with our customers to qualify those modified products for use in our customers’ networks. In particular, the ’577 patent was directed to a feature that is implemented in the merchant silicon chips that we purchase from third-party suppliers. Because we do not design, build or manufacture these merchant silicon chips, we are limited in further modifications that we can make to our products for this patent. Our redesign efforts therefore consisted of removing the feature found to infringe the ’577 patent in all of our products until this patent expires on June 30, 2018, and providing an alternative feature to address the ‘577 patent for a subset of those products. The redesign and qualification efforts to address the 945 Investigation findings could be extremely costly and time consuming for us and our customers as well as disruptive to our other development activities and distracting to management. We may not be able to complete, and our customers may not be able to qualify these redesigned products in a timely fashion, if at all. For example, some of our customers continue to test and qualify our redesigned products which address the ’577 and ’668 patents to ensure that they meet their network requirements. This could result in a delay or cancellation of purchases by some customers until the redesigned products are qualified or accepted by such customers, a rejection or return of our redesigned products by some customers or a loss of sales to some customers who are unable to qualify or accept the redesigned products, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenues, deferred revenue balances, prospects, reputation, results of operations or financial condition.
Because the USITC did not suspend its orders in the 945 Investigation, despite a PTAB finding that every relevant claim of the ’668 and ’577 patents is unpatentable, we were barred from importing our redesigned products into the United States until we received approval from CBP. On July 21, 2017, we submitted a Part 177 request to CBP seeking approval to import our redesigned products into the United States. Following the Federal Circuit’s order on September 22, 2017, allowing us to import our redesigned products, we withdrew our request. On October 12, 2017, CBP, over Cisco’s objection, terminated the Part 177 proceedings, and confirmed that it will permit entry of our redesigns pursuant to the Federal Circuit’s September 22, 2017 order.
In either the 944 enforcement action or the 945 modification proceeding, if the USITC determines that our redesigned products infringe any of the patents that are the subject of USITC remedial orders, those redesigned products will also be barred from import into the United States, or sale after importation. In addition, the USITC may impose the maximum statutory civil penalties for violation of the cease and desist order “including monetary sanctions for each day’s violation of the cease and desist order of the greater of $100,000 or twice the domestic value of the articles entered or sold, whichever is higher,” bring a civil action in U.S. district court “requesting collection of such civil penalties and the issuance of a mandatory injunction preventing further violation of Cease and Desist Order,” or impose “such other remedies and sanctions as are appropriate and within the Commission’s authority.” In the 944 enforcement action, the ALJ recommended a civil penalty of $307 million if the Commission were to reverse the ALJ’s finding of no violation. Any such finding by the USITC in either the 944 enforcement action or the 945 modification proceeding could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, reputation, results of operations and financial condition.
An adverse finding in the 944 enforcement action or the 945 modification proceeding would take effect immediately upon USITC’s issuance of the final determination, without any Presidential review period. To address such a finding, we would have to further redesign our products to make them non-infringing, and until we made such changes we would not be able to import or ship our products to customers. Our further redesign efforts could be extremely costly and time consuming as well as disruptive to our other development activities and distracting to management. We may not be able to further redesign the products in a manner that does not continue to infringe the patents or that is acceptable to customers. We may not be able to complete, and our customers may not be able to qualify, such further redesigned products in a timely fashion, if at all, following the issuance of an adverse final determination, leading to a delay or cancellation of purchases by some customers until those redesigned products are qualified or accepted by such customers, a rejection or return of our redesigned products by some customers or a loss of sales to some customers who are unable to qualify or accept the redesigned products. Our redesign efforts could be extremely costly and time consuming as well as disruptive to our other development activities and distracting to management.
For example, in the 944 enforcement action, although the ALJ issued an initial determination finding that our redesigned products did not violate the June 23, 2016 cease and desist order, if the ALJ modifies the initial determination during the remand proceeding, or if the Commission finds a violation in its final determination on September 4, 2018, we will no longer be able to import or ship our products in the U.S. until we make further changes to address those findings, which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenues, prospects, reputation, results of operations or financial condition. We would also need to obtain USITC or CBP approval to resume importation of such redesigned products into the United States. In addition, the USITC would not provide a service and support exception for our previously redesigned products, and customers may be required to upgrade to new products to obtain service and support. If we are unable to obtain such approvals or provide such service and support exception, our business, prospects, reputation, results of operations or financial condition could be materially and adversely affected. In addition, if we are found to have violated the USITC’s orders while those orders remain in effect, we may be subject to the penalties described above.
In the 945 modification proceeding, while the USITC orders are based upon patent claims that the PTAB has found to be invalid, these orders will remain in effect unless and until the PTAB decisions are affirmed on appeal and the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") cancels the patents or the patents expire. If the Commission finds a violation in its final determination for the 945 modification proceeding, we will no longer be able to import or ship our products in the U.S. until we make further changes to address those findings and/or until the PTAB decisions are so affirmed and the PTO cancels the patents or the patents expire, which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenues, prospects, reputation, results of operations or financial condition. We would also need to obtain USITC or CBP approval to resume importation of any such redesigned products into the United States. In addition, the USITC would not provide a service and support exception for our previously redesigned products, and customers may be required to upgrade to new products to obtain service and support. If we are unable to obtain such approvals or provide such service and support exception, our business, revenues, prospects, reputation, results of operations or financial condition could be materially and adversely affected. In light of the Federal Circuit’s February 14, 2018 ruling affirming the PTAB’s invalidity findings on the ’668 patent, we plan to seek a stay of the ITC’s remedial orders as they relate to the ’668 patent. If our motion is denied, we would continue to be subject to the ITC’s remedial orders on the ’668 patent until all appeals have been fully resolved in our favor and the claims cancelled by the PTO. We may not prevail on this appeal in a timely manner, if at all. In addition, even if the PTAB decisions are ultimately affirmed on appeal, and the patent claims are canceled, if we are found to have violated the USITC’s orders while those orders remain in effect, we may be subject to the penalties described above.
To comply with the USITC’s remedial orders, we have also made certain changes to our manufacturing, importation and shipping workflows. These changes have included shifting manufacturing and integration of our products to be sold in the United States to U.S. facilities. Such changes may be extremely costly, time consuming, and we may not be able to implement such changes successfully. Any failure to successfully change our manufacturing and importation processes or shipping workflows in a manner that is compliant with the USITC’s limited exclusion orders and cease and desist orders may cause a disruption in our product shipments and materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, reputation, results of operations, and financial condition.
In connection with these changes, to the extent that we are required to make further modifications to our supply chain to obtain alternative U.S. sources for subcomponents, we may be unable to obtain a sufficient quantity of these components on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely manner, if at all, which could delay or halt entirely production of our products or require us to make further modifications to our products to incorporate new components that are available in the United States. Any of these events could result in lost sales, reduced gross margins or damage to our end-customer relationships, which would materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Additionally, the existence of Ciscoʼs lawsuits against us could cause concern among our customers and partners and could adversely affect our business and results of operations. Many of our customers and partners require us to indemnify and defend them against third party infringement claims and pay damages in the case of adverse rulings. These claims could harm our relationships with our customers or channel partners, cause them to delay or defer purchasing decisions or deter them from doing business with us. From time to time, we may also be required to provide additional assurances beyond our standard terms. Whether or not we prevail in the lawsuit, we expect that the litigation will be expensive, time-consuming and a distraction to management in operating our business.
We are currently involved in a license dispute with OptumSoft, Inc.
On April 4, 2014, OptumSoft filed a lawsuit against us in the Superior Court of California, Santa Clara County titled
OptumSoft, Inc. v. Arista Networks, Inc.
, in which it asserts (i) ownership of certain components of our EOS network operating system pursuant to the terms of a 2004 agreement between the companies; and (ii) breaches of certain confidentiality and use restrictions in that agreement. Under the terms of the 2004 agreement, OptumSoft provided us with a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to software delivered by OptumSoft comprising a software tool used to develop certain components of EOS and a runtime library that is incorporated into EOS. The 2004 agreement places certain restrictions on our use and disclosure of the OptumSoft software and gives OptumSoft ownership of improvements, modifications and corrections to, and derivative works of, the OptumSoft software that we develop.
In its lawsuit, OptumSoft has asked the Court to order us to (i) give OptumSoft access to our software for evaluation by OptumSoft; (ii) cease all conduct constituting the alleged confidentiality and use restriction breaches; (iii) secure the return or deletion of OptumSoft’s alleged intellectual property provided to third parties, including our customers; (iv) assign ownership to OptumSoft of OptumSoft’s alleged intellectual property currently owned by us; and (v) pay OptumSoft’s alleged damages, attorney’s fees, and costs of the lawsuit.
David Cheriton, one of our founders and a former member of our board of directors, who resigned from our board of directors on March 1, 2014 and has no continuing role with us, is a founder and, we believe, the largest stockholder and director of OptumSoft. The 2010 David R. Cheriton Irrevocable Trust dated July 28, 2010, a trust for the benefit of the minor children of Mr. Cheriton, is one of our largest stockholders.
On April 14, 2014, we filed a cross-complaint against OptumSoft, in which we assert our ownership of the software components at issue and our interpretation of the 2004 agreement. Among other things, we assert that the language of the 2004 agreement and the parties’ long course of conduct support our ownership of the disputed software components. We ask the Court to declare our ownership of those software components, all similarly-situated software components developed in the future and all related intellectual property. We also assert that, even if we are found not to own certain components, such components are licensed to us under the terms of the 2004 agreement. However, there can be no assurance that our assertions will ultimately prevail in litigation. On the same day, we also filed an answer to OptumSoft’s claims, as well as affirmative defenses based in part on OptumSoft’s failure to maintain the confidentiality of its claimed trade secrets, its authorization of the disclosures it asserts and its delay in claiming ownership of the software components at issue. We have also taken additional steps to respond to OptumSoft’s allegations that we improperly used and/or disclosed OptumSoft confidential information. While we believe we have meritorious defenses to these allegations, we believe we have (i) revised our software to remove the elements we understand to be the subject of the claims relating to improper use and disclosure of OptumSoft confidential information and made the revised software available to our customers and (ii) removed information from our website that OptumSoft asserted disclosed OptumSoft confidential information.
The parties tried Phase I of the case, relating to contract interpretation and application of the contract to certain claimed source code, in September 2015. On December 16, 2015, the Court issued a Proposed Statement of Decision Following Phase 1 Trial, and on January 8, 2016, OptumSoft filed objections to that Proposed Statement of Decision. On March 23, 2016, the Court issued a Final Statement of Decision Following Phase I Trial, in which it agreed with and adopted our interpretation of the 2004 agreement and held that we, and not OptumSoft, own all the software at issue in Phase I. The remaining issues that were not addressed in the Phase I trial are set to be tried in Phase II including the application of the Court’s interpretation of the 2004 agreement as set forth in the Final Statement of Decision Following Phase I Trial to any other source code that OptumSoft claims to own following a review. Phase II was previously scheduled to be tried in April 2016; however, that trial date has been vacated and a new trial date has not yet been set.
We intend to vigorously defend against any claims brought against us by OptumSoft. However, we cannot be certain that, if litigated, any claims by OptumSoft would be resolved in our favor. For example, if it were determined that OptumSoft owned components of our EOS network operating system, we would be required to transfer ownership of those components and any related intellectual property to OptumSoft. If OptumSoft were the owner of those components, it could make them available to our competitors, such as through a sale or license. An adverse litigation ruling could result in a significant damages award against us and injunctive relief. In addition, OptumSoft could assert additional or different claims against us, including claims that our license from OptumSoft is invalid.
Managing the supply of our products and product components is complex. Insufficient supply and inventory may result in lost sales opportunities or delayed revenue, while excess inventory may harm our gross margins.
Managing the supply of our products and product components is complex, and our inventory management systems and related supply-chain visibility tools may not enable us to forecast accurately and manage effectively the supply of our products and product components. Furthermore, ongoing Cisco litigation before the USITC and any adverse ruling that results from such litigation could cause disruption to our supply-chain or with our suppliers, which may impact our revenues, business and reputation. For example, in the 944 Investigation, the USITC has issued a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of our network devices (including our 7000 Series of switches), related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ʼ537, ʼ592, and ʼ145 patents specified above and a Cease and Desist Order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products. Similarly, in the 945 Investigation, the USITC has issued a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of our network devices (including our 7000 Series of switches), related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ʼ577 and ‘668 patents specified above and a Cease and Desist Order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products. Each of these remedial orders could prevent us from importing products or components into the U.S. or using inventory to satisfy U.S demand and/or may cause us to write-down such inventory, which could reduce our gross margins.
To the extent that we are required to obtain alternative U.S. sources for these components, we may be unable to obtain a sufficient quantity of these components on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely manner, if at all, sales of our products could be delayed or halted entirely or we may be required to redesign our products. Any of these events could result in lost sales, reduced gross margins or damage to our end-customer relationships, which would materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Insufficient supply and inventory may result in increased lead times for our products, lost sales opportunities or delayed revenue, while excess inventory may harm our gross margins. In order to reduce manufacturing lead times and plan for adequate component supply, from time to time we may issue purchase orders for components and products that are non-cancelable and non-returnable. We establish a liability for non-cancelable, non-returnable purchase commitments with our component inventory suppliers for quantities in excess of our demand forecasts, or for products that are considered obsolete. In addition, we establish a liability and reimburse our contract
manufacturer for component inventory purchased on our behalf that has been rendered excess or obsolete due to manufacturing and engineering change orders, or in cases where inventory levels greatly exceed our demand forecasts.
Supply management remains an increased area of focus as we balance the need to maintain sufficient supply levels to ensure competitive lead times against the risk of obsolescence or the end of life of certain products. If we ultimately determine that we have excess supply, we may have to reduce our prices and write down inventory, which in turn could result in lower gross margins. We record a provision when inventory is determined to be in excess of anticipated demand or obsolete to adjust inventory to its estimated realizable value.
Alternatively, insufficient supply levels may lead to shortages that result in delayed revenue or loss of sales opportunities altogether as potential end customers turn to competitors’ products that are readily available. Additionally, any increases in the time required to manufacture our products or ship products could result in supply shortfalls. If we are unable to effectively manage our supply and inventory, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be adversely affected.
Because some of the key components in our products come from sole or limited sources of supply, we are susceptible to supply shortages or supply changes, which could disrupt or delay our scheduled product deliveries to our end customers and may result in the loss of sales and end customers.
Our products rely on key components, including integrated circuit components and power supplies that our contract manufacturers purchase on our behalf from a limited number of suppliers, including certain sole source providers. Generally, we do not have guaranteed supply contracts with our component suppliers, and our suppliers could delay shipments, prioritize shipments to other vendors or cease manufacturing such products or selling them to us at any time. For example, in the past we have experienced shortages in inventory for dynamic random access memory integrated circuits and delayed releases of the next generation of chipset, which delayed our production and/or the release of our new products. The development of alternate sources for those components is time-consuming, difficult and costly.
Additionally, litigation in the USITC could materially impact our supply of key components including, for example, merchant silicon chips that we purchase from our third-party suppliers. For example, in the 944 Investigation, the USITC has issued a limited exclusion order barring entry into the United States of our network devices (including our 7000 Series of switches), related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ʼ537, ʼ592, and ʼ145 patents specified above and a Cease and Desist Order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products. The USITC has also issued a limited exclusion order in the 945 Investigation barring entry into the United States of our network devices (including our 7000 Series of switches), related software and components thereof that infringe one or more of the claims of the ʼ577 and ‘668 patents specified above and a Cease and Desist Order restricting our activities with respect to such imported products. If we are unable to obtain a sufficient quantity of these components on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely manner, or if we are unable to obtain alternative sources for these components, sales of our products could be delayed or halted entirely or we may be required to redesign our products. Any of these events could result in lost sales, reduced gross margins or damage to our end-customer relationships, which would adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our reliance on component suppliers also yields the potential for their infringement or misappropriation of third party intellectual property rights with respect to components which may be incorporated into our products. We may not be indemnified by such component suppliers for such infringement or misappropriation claims. Any litigation for which we do not receive indemnification could require us to incur significant legal expenses in defending against such claims or require us to pay substantial royalty payments or settlement amounts that would not be reimbursed by our component suppliers.
Our product development efforts are also dependent upon our continued collaboration with our key merchant silicon vendors such as Broadcom and Intel. As we develop our product roadmap and continue to expand our relationships with these and other merchant silicon vendors, it is critical that we work in tandem with our key merchant silicon vendors to ensure that their silicon includes improved features and that our products take advantage of such improved features. This enables us to focus our research and development resources on our software core competencies and to leverage the investments made by merchant silicon vendors to achieve cost-effective solutions.
If our key merchant silicon vendors do not continue to collaborate in such a fashion, if they do not continue to innovate or if there are delays in the release of their products, our own product launches could be delayed, which could have a material effect on revenue and business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
In the event of a shortage or supply interruption from our component suppliers, we may not be able to develop alternate or second sources in a timely manner. Further, long-term supply and maintenance obligations to end customers increase the duration for which specific components are required, which may increase the risk of component shortages or the cost of carrying inventory. In addition, our component suppliers change their selling prices frequently in response to market trends, including industry-wide increases in demand, and because we do not have contracts with these suppliers, we are susceptible to price fluctuations related to raw materials and components. If we are unable to pass component price increases along to our end customers or maintain stable pricing, our gross margins could be adversely affected and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could suffer.
Because we depend on third-party manufacturers to build our products, we are susceptible to manufacturing delays and pricing fluctuations that could prevent us from shipping end-customer orders on time, if at all, or on a cost-effective basis, which may result in the loss of sales and end customers.
We depend on third-party contract manufacturers to manufacture our product lines. A significant portion of our cost of revenue consists of payments to these third-party contract manufacturers. Our reliance on these third-party contract manufacturers reduces our control over the manufacturing process, quality assurance, product costs and product supply and timing, which exposes us to risk. To the extent that our products are manufactured at facilities in foreign countries, we may be subject to additional risks associated with complying with local rules and regulations in those jurisdictions. Our reliance on contract manufacturers also yields the potential for their infringement of third party intellectual property rights in the manufacturing of our products or misappropriation of our intellectual property rights in the manufacturing of other customers’ products. If we are unable to manage our relationships with our third-party contract manufacturers effectively, or if these third-party manufacturers suffer delays or disruptions or quality control problems in their operations, experience increased manufacturing lead times, capacity constraints or quality control problems in their manufacturing operations or fail to meet our future requirements for timely delivery, our ability to ship products to our end customers would be severely impaired, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects would be seriously harmed.
Our contract manufacturers typically fulfill our supply requirements on the basis of individual orders. We do not have long-term contracts with our third-party manufacturers that guarantee capacity, the continuation of particular pricing terms or the extension of credit limits. Accordingly, they are not obligated to continue to fulfill our supply requirements, which could result in supply shortages, and the prices we are charged for manufacturing services could be increased on short notice. For example, a competitor could place large orders with the third-party manufacturer, thereby utilizing all or substantially all of such third-party manufacturer’s capacity and leaving the manufacturer little or no capacity to fulfill our individual orders without price increases or delays, or at all. Our contract with one of our contract manufacturers permits it to terminate the agreement for convenience, subject to prior notice requirements. We may not be able to develop alternate or second contract manufacturers in a timely manner.
If we add or change contract manufacturers, or change any manufacturing plant locations within a contract manufacturer network, we would add additional complexity and risk to our supply chain management and may increase our working capital requirements. Ensuring a new contract manufacturer or new plant location is qualified to manufacture our products to our standards and industry requirements could take significant effort and be time consuming and expensive. For example, we have added Sanmina as an additional contract manufacturer. Any such addition or change in manufacturers may be extremely costly, time consuming and we may not be able to do so successfully.
In addition, we may be subject to additional significant challenges in ensuring that quality, processes and costs, among other issues, are consistent with our expectations and those of our customers. A new contract manufacturer or manufacturing location may not be able to scale its production of our products at the volumes or quality we require. This could also adversely affect our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries to our end customers, which could damage our customer relationships and cause the loss of sales to existing or potential end customers, late delivery penalties, delayed revenue or an increase in our costs which could adversely affect our gross margins. This could also result in increased levels of inventory subjecting us to increased excess and obsolete charges that could have a negative impact on our operating results.
We have expanded our contract manufacturing capabilities to include Sanmina as an additional contract manufacturer, which will increase our working capital requirements and the risks noted above apply to this new contract manufacturer. No assurance can be given that this contract manufacturer will continue to successfully qualify and scale production of our products in the volumes or quality that we require. If a USITC limited exclusion order issued in connection with the Cisco litigation bars entry of our products into the United States and we are unable to obtain the necessary approvals to resume the importation of our redesigned products, we would become reliant upon U.S. manufacturing to continue to supply our products to our U.S. customers. Any failure to meet our scheduled product deliveries to our end customers could damage our customer relationships and cause the loss of sales to existing or potential end customers, late delivery penalties, delayed revenue or an increase in our costs which could adversely affect our gross margins.
Any production interruptions or disruptions for any reason, including those noted above, as well as a natural disaster, epidemic, capacity shortages, adverse results from intellectual property litigation or quality problems, at one of our manufacturing partners would adversely affect sales of our product lines manufactured by that manufacturing partner and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Product quality problems, defects, errors or vulnerabilities in our products or services could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We produce highly complex products that incorporate advanced technologies, including both hardware and software technologies. Despite testing prior to their release, our products may contain undetected defects or errors, especially when first introduced or when new versions are released. Product defects or errors could affect the performance of our products and could delay the development or release of new products or new versions of products. Allegations of unsatisfactory performance could cause us to lose revenue or market share, increase our service costs, cause us to incur substantial costs in analyzing, correcting or redesigning the products, cause us to lose significant end customers, subject us to liability for damages and divert our resources from other tasks, any one of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
From time to time, we have had to replace certain components of products that we had shipped and provide remediation in response to the discovery of defects or bugs, including failures in software protocols or defective component batches resulting in reliability issues, in such products, and we may be required to do so in the future. We may also be required to provide full replacements or refunds for such defective products. We cannot assure you that such remediation would not have a material effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Please see “Our business is subject to the risks of warranty claims, product returns, product liability and product defects.”
Reliance on or delays in shipments could cause our revenue for the applicable period to fall below expected levels.
We may be subject to supply chain delays, or end-customer buying patterns in which a substantial portion of sales orders and shipments may occur in the second half of each quarter. This places significant pressure on order review and processing, supply chain management, manufacturing, inventory and quality control management, shipping and trade compliance to ensure that we have properly forecasted supply purchasing, manufacturing capacity, inventory and quality compliance and logistics. If there is any significant interruption in these critical functions, it could result in delayed order fulfillment, adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects and result in a decline in the market price of our common stock.
We base our inventory requirements on our forecasts of future sales. If these forecasts are materially inaccurate, we may procure inventory that we may be unable to use in a timely manner or at all.
We and our contract manufacturers procure components and build our products based on our forecasts. These forecasts are based on estimates of future demand for our products, which are in turn based on historical trends and analyses from our sales and marketing organizations, adjusted for overall market conditions and other factors. To the extent our forecasts are materially inaccurate or if we otherwise do not need such inventory, we may under- or over-procure inventory, and such inaccuracies in our forecasts could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The sales prices of our products and services may decrease, which may reduce our gross profits and adversely affect our results of operations.
The sales prices for our products and services may decline for a variety of reasons, including competitive pricing pressures, discounts, a change in our mix of products and services, the introduction of new products and services by us or by our competitors including the adoption of “white box” solutions, promotional programs, product and related warranty costs or broader macroeconomic factors. In addition, we have provided, and may in the future provide, pricing discounts to large end customers, which may result in lower margins for the period in which such sales occur. Our gross margins may also fluctuate as a result of the timing of such sales to large end customers.
We have experienced declines in sales prices for our products. Competition continues to increase in the market segments in which we participate, and we expect competition to further increase in the future, thereby leading to increased pricing pressures. Larger competitors with more diverse product and service offerings may reduce the price of products and services that compete with ours or may bundle them with other products and services. Additionally, although we generally price our products worldwide in U.S. dollars, currency fluctuations in certain countries and regions may adversely affect actual prices that partners and end customers are willing to pay in those countries and regions. Furthermore, we anticipate that the sales prices and gross profits for our products will decrease over product life cycles. Decreased sales prices for any reason may reduce our gross profits and adversely affect our result of operations.
Sales of our 7000 Series of switches generate most of our product revenue, and if we are unable to continue to grow sales of these products, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will suffer.
Historically, we have derived substantially all of our product revenue from sales of our 7000 Series of switches, and we expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We have experienced declines in sales prices for our products, including our 10 Gigabit Ethernet modular and fixed switches. A decline in the price of our 7000 Series of switches and related services, or our inability to increase sales of these products, would harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects more seriously than if we derived significant revenue from a larger variety of product lines and services. Our future financial performance will also depend upon successfully developing and selling next-generation versions of our 7000 Series of switches. If we fail to deliver new products, new features, or new releases that end customers want and that allow us to maintain leadership in what will continue to be a competitive market environment, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be harmed.
Our ability to sell our products is highly dependent on the quality of our support and services offerings, and our failure to offer high-quality support and services could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Once our products are deployed within our end customers’ networks, our end customers depend on our support organization and our channel partners to resolve any issues relating to our products. High-quality support is critical for the successful marketing and sale of our products. If we or our channel partners do not assist our end customers in deploying our products effectively, do not succeed in helping our end customers resolve post-deployment issues quickly or do not provide adequate ongoing support, it could adversely affect our ability to sell our products to existing end customers and could harm our reputation with potential end customers. In addition, as we expand our operations internationally, our support organization will face additional challenges, including those associated with
delivering support, training and documentation in languages other than English. Our failure or the failure of our channel partners to maintain high-quality support and services could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our business depends on end customers renewing their maintenance and support contracts. Any decline in maintenance renewals could harm our future business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We typically sell our products with maintenance and support as part of the initial purchase, and a portion of our annual revenue comes from renewals of maintenance and support contracts. Our end customers have no obligation to renew their maintenance and support contracts after the expiration of the initial period, and they may elect not to renew their maintenance and support contracts, to renew their maintenance and support contracts at lower prices through alternative channel partners or to reduce the product quantity under their maintenance and support contracts, thereby reducing our future revenue from maintenance and support contracts. If our end customers, especially our large end customers, do not renew their maintenance and support contracts or if they renew them on terms that are less favorable to us, our revenue may decline and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will suffer.
Seasonality may cause fluctuations in our revenue and results of operations.
We operate on a December 31st year end and believe that there are significant seasonal factors which may cause sequential product revenue growth to be greater for the second and fourth quarters of our year than our first and third quarters. We believe that this seasonality results from a number of factors, including the procurement, budgeting and deployment cycles of many of our end customers. Our rapid historical growth may have reduced the impact of seasonal or cyclical factors that might have influenced our business to date. As our increasing size causes our growth rate to slow, seasonal or cyclical variations in our operations may become more pronounced over time and may materially affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If we are unable to increase market awareness of our company and our products, our revenue may not continue to grow or may decline.
We have not yet established broad market awareness of our products and services. Market awareness of our value proposition and products and services will be essential to our continued growth and our success, particularly for the service provider and large enterprise markets. If our marketing efforts are unsuccessful in creating market awareness of our company and our products and services, then our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be adversely affected, and we will not be able to achieve sustained growth.
If we are unable to hire, retain, train and motivate qualified personnel and senior management, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could suffer.
Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled personnel, particularly software engineering and sales personnel. Competition for highly skilled personnel is often intense, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where we have a substantial presence and need for highly skilled personnel. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have to provide more attractive compensation packages and other amenities. Research and development personnel are aggressively recruited by startup and growth companies, which are especially active in many of the technical areas and geographic regions in which we conduct product development. In addition, in making employment decisions, particularly in the high-technology industry, job candidates often consider the value of the stock-based compensation they are to receive in connection with their employment. Declines in the market price of our stock could adversely affect our ability to attract, motivate or retain key employees. If we are unable to attract or retain qualified personnel, or if there are delays in hiring required personnel, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be seriously harmed.
Also, to the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that such personnel has been improperly solicited, that such personnel has divulged proprietary or other confidential information or that former employers own certain inventions or other work product. Such claims could result in litigation. Please see “We may become involved in litigation that may materially adversely affect us.”
We employ a number of foreign nationals who are required to obtain visas and entry permits in order to legally work in the United States and other countries. The United States has recently increased the level of scrutiny in granting H-1(B), L-1 and other business visas, and the current administration has indicated that immigration reform is a priority. Our compliance with United States immigration and labor laws could require us to incur additional unexpected labor costs and expenses or could restrain our ability to retain skilled professionals.
Our future performance also depends on the continued services and continuing contributions of our senior management to execute our business plan and to identify and pursue new opportunities and product innovations. Our employment arrangements with our employees do not require that they continue to work for us for any specified period, and therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of our key personnel, including Jayshree Ullal, our Chief Executive Officer, Andy Bechtolsheim, our Founder and Chief Development Officer, Kenneth Duda, our Founder, Chief Technology Officer and SVP Software Engineering, Anshul Sadana, our Chief Customer Officer or other members of our senior management team, sales and marketing team or engineering team, or any difficulty
attracting or retaining other highly qualified personnel in the future, could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our development and strategic objectives, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If we do not effectively expand and train our direct sales force, we may be unable to add new end customers or increase sales to our existing end customers, and our business will be adversely affected.
We depend on our direct sales force to obtain new end customers and increase sales with existing end customers. As such, we have invested and will continue to invest in our sales organization. In recent periods, we have been adding personnel and other resources to our sales function as we focus on growing our business, entering new markets and increasing our market share, and we expect to incur additional expenses in expanding our sales personnel in order to achieve revenue growth. There is significant competition for sales personnel with the skills and technical knowledge that we require. Our ability to achieve significant revenue growth will depend, in large part, on our success in recruiting, training, retaining and integrating sufficient numbers of sales personnel to support our growth, particularly in international markets. New hires require significant training and may take significant time before they achieve full productivity. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become productive as quickly as we expect, and we may be unable to hire, retain or integrate into our corporate culture sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the markets where we do business or plan to do business. In addition, because we continue to grow rapidly, a large percentage of our sales force is new to our company. If we are unable to hire, integrate and train a sufficient number of effective sales personnel, or the sales personnel we hire are not successful in obtaining new end customers or increasing sales to our existing end-customer base, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be adversely affected.
We are subject to a number of risks associated with the expansion of our international sales and operations.
Our ability to grow our business and our future success will depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our operations and customer base worldwide. We have a limited history of marketing, selling and supporting our products and services internationally. Operating in a global marketplace, we are subject to risks associated with having an international reach and requirements such as compliance with applicable anti-corruption laws.
One such applicable anti-corruption law is the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, which generally prohibits U.S. companies and its employees and intermediaries from making corrupt payments to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or keeping business, securing an advantage and directing business to another, and requires companies to maintain accurate books and records and a system of internal accounting controls. Under the FCPA, U.S. companies may be held liable for the corrupt actions taken by directors, officers, employees, agents, or other strategic or local partners or representatives. As such, if we or our intermediaries fail to comply with the requirements of the FCPA or similar legislation, governmental authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere could seek to impose civil and/or criminal fines and penalties which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial conditions. Failure to comply with anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws, such as the FCPA and the United Kingdom Bribery Act of 2010, or the U.K. Bribery Act, and similar laws associated with our activities outside the U.S., could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences. We intend to increase our international sales and business and, as such, the risk of violating laws such as the FCPA and U.K. Bribery Act increases.
Additionally, the U.S. government has adopted broader sanctions and embargoes that generally forbid supplying many items to or involving certain countries, territories, governments, legal entities and individuals, including restrictions imposed by the U.S. and EU on exports to Russia and Ukraine. We have implemented systems to detect and prevent sales into these countries or to prohibit entities or individuals, but we are necessarily dependent in part on our third-party suppliers and distributors to implement these systems. We cannot assure you that these systems will always be effective, or that our suppliers and distributors effectively implement our systems to detect and prevent such sales without our prior knowledge, and we may incur additional unexpected costs or expenses to comply with applicable trade restrictions.
As a result of our international reach, we must hire and train experienced personnel to staff and manage our foreign operations. To the extent that we experience difficulties in recruiting, training, managing and retaining an international staff, and specifically staff related to sales management and sales personnel, we may experience difficulties in sales productivity in foreign markets. We also enter into strategic distributor and reseller relationships with companies in certain international markets where we do not have a local presence. If we are not able to maintain successful strategic distributor relationships internationally or to recruit additional companies to enter into strategic distributor relationships, our future success in these international markets could be limited. Business practices in the international markets that we serve may differ from those in the U.S. and may require us in the future to include terms other than our standard terms in end-customer contracts, although to date we generally have not done so. To the extent that we may enter into end-customer contracts in the future that include non-standard terms related to payment, warranties or performance obligations, our results of operations may be adversely affected.
Additionally, our international sales and operations are subject to a number of risks, including the following:
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greater difficulty in enforcing contracts and accounts receivable collection and longer collection periods;
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increased expenses incurred in establishing and maintaining our international operations;
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fluctuations in exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies where we do business;
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greater difficulty and costs in recruiting local experienced personnel;
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wage inflation in certain growing economies;
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general economic and political conditions in these foreign markets;
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economic uncertainty around the world as a result of sovereign debt issues;
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communication and integration problems resulting from cultural and geographic dispersion;
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limitations on our ability to access cash resources in our international operations;
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ability to establish necessary business relationships and to comply with local business requirements;
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risks associated with trade restrictions and foreign legal requirements, including the importation, certification and localization of our products required in foreign countries;
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greater risk of unexpected changes in regulatory practices, tariffs and tax laws and treaties, including the Tax Act;
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the uncertainty of protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
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greater risk of a failure of foreign employees to comply with both U.S. and foreign laws, including antitrust regulations, the FCPA and any trade regulations ensuring fair trade practices; and
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heightened risk of unfair or corrupt business practices in certain geographies and of improper or fraudulent sales arrangements that may impact financial results and result in restatements of, or irregularities in, financial statements.
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These and other factors could harm our ability to gain future international revenue and, consequently, materially affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Expanding our existing international operations and entering into additional international markets will require significant management attention and financial commitments. Our failure to successfully manage our international operations and the associated risks effectively could limit our future growth or materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
In addition, the U.K.’s decision to initiate an exit process from the EU, known as Brexit, has caused uncertainty in the global markets. If implemented, Brexit will take some period of time to complete and could result in significant regulatory changes in both the U.K. and the EU that could impact our business. Because we conduct business in the EU, including the U.K., any of the effects of Brexit could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows.
If we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting in the future, the accuracy and timing of our financial reporting may be adversely affected.
Assessing our processes, procedures and staffing in order to improve our internal control over financial reporting is an ongoing process. Preparing our financial statements involves a number of complex processes, many of which are done manually and are dependent upon individual data input or review. These processes include, but are not limited to, calculating revenue, inventory costs and the preparation of our statement of cash flows. While we continue to automate our processes and enhance our review controls to reduce the likelihood for errors, we expect that for the foreseeable future many of our processes will remain manually intensive and thus subject to human error.
In the past, we have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and we cannot give assurance that additional material weaknesses will not be identified in the future. The existence of one or more material weaknesses could preclude a conclusion by management that we maintained effective internal control over financial reporting. The existence or disclosure of any such material weakness could adversely affect our stock price.
Adverse economic conditions or reduced information technology and network infrastructure spending may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our business depends on the overall demand for information technology, network connectivity and access to data and applications. Weak domestic or global economic conditions, fear or anticipation of such conditions or a reduction in information technology and network infrastructure spending even if economic conditions improve, could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects in a number of ways, including longer sales cycles, lower prices for our products and services, higher default rates among our distributors, reduced unit sales and lower or no growth. For example, the global macroeconomic environment could be negatively affected by, among other things, instability in the global credit markets, the impact and uncertainty regarding global central bank monetary policy, the instability in the geopolitical environment as a result of the United Kingdom “Brexit” decision to withdraw from the European Union, economic challenges in China and ongoing U.S. and foreign governmental debt concerns. Such challenges have caused, and are likely to continue to cause, uncertainty and instability in local economies and in global financial markets, particularly if any future sovereign debt defaults or significant bank failures or defaults occur. Market uncertainty and instability in Europe or Asia could intensify or spread further, particularly if ongoing stabilization efforts prove insufficient. Continuing or worsening economic instability could adversely affect spending for IT, network infrastructure, systems and tools. Continued turmoil in the geopolitical environment in many parts of the world may also affect the overall demand for our products. Although we do not believe that our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects have been significantly adversely affected by economic and political uncertainty in Europe, Asia or other countries to date, deterioration of such conditions may harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects in the future. A prolonged period of economic uncertainty or a downturn may also significantly affect financing markets, the availability of capital and the terms and conditions of financing arrangements, including the overall cost of financing as well as the
financial health or creditworthiness of our end customers. Circumstances may arise in which we need, or desire, to raise additional capital, and such capital may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
We may become involved in litigation that may materially adversely affect us.
From time to time, in addition to the litigation involving Cisco Systems, Inc. and Optumsoft, Inc. described elsewhere in these risk factors, we may become involved in various legal proceedings relating to matters incidental to the ordinary course of our business, including patent, copyright, commercial, product liability, employment, class action, whistleblower and other litigation and claims, in addition to governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources, cause us to incur significant expenses or liability and/or require us to change our business practices. Because of the potential risks, expenses and uncertainties of litigation, we may, from time to time, settle disputes, even where we have meritorious claims or defenses, by agreeing to settlement agreements. Because litigation is inherently unpredictable, we cannot assure you that the results of any of these actions will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
For more information regarding the litigation in which we are currently involved, see the “Legal Proceedings” subheading in in Note 5. Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K incorporated herein by reference.
Assertions by third parties of infringement or other violations by us of their intellectual property rights, or other lawsuits asserted against us, could result in significant costs and substantially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in the network infrastructure industry and have resulted in protracted and expensive litigation for many companies. Many companies in the network infrastructure industry, including our competitors and other third parties, as well as non-practicing entities, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets, which they may use to assert claims of patent infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights against us. From time to time, they have or may in the future also assert such claims against us, our end customers or channel partners whom we typically indemnify against claims that our products infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of third parties. For example, we are currently parties to certain litigation involving Cisco Systems, Inc. and OptumSoft, Inc. described elsewhere in these risk factors.
As the number of products and competitors in our market increases and overlaps occur, claims of infringement, misappropriation and other violations of intellectual property rights may increase. Any claim of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim, distract our management from our business and require us to cease use of such intellectual property. In addition, some claims for patent infringement may relate to subcomponents that we purchase from third parties. If these third parties are unable or unwilling to indemnify us for these claims, we could be substantially harmed.
The patent portfolios of most of our competitors are larger than ours. This disparity may increase the risk that our competitors may sue us for patent infringement and may limit our ability to counterclaim for patent infringement or settle through patent cross-licenses. In addition, future assertions of patent rights by third parties, and any resulting litigation, may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant product revenue and against whom our own patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence or protection. We cannot assure you that we are not infringing or otherwise violating any third-party intellectual property rights.
The third-party asserters of intellectual property claims may be unreasonable in their demands, or may simply refuse to settle, which could lead to expensive settlement payments, prolonged periods of litigation and related expenses, additional burdens on employees or other resources, distraction from our business, supply stoppages and lost sales.
An adverse outcome of a dispute (including those lawsuits described under the “Legal Proceedings” subheading in Note 5. Commitments and Contingencies of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K) may require us to pay substantial damages or penalties including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed a third party’s patents; cease making, licensing, using or importing into the U.S. products or services that are alleged to infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property of others; expend additional development resources to attempt to redesign our products or services or otherwise to develop non-infringing technology, which may not be successful; enter into potentially unfavorable royalty or license agreements in order to obtain the right to use necessary technologies or intellectual property rights; and indemnify our partners and other third parties. Any damages, penalties or royalty obligations we may become subject to as a result of an adverse outcome, and any third-party indemnity we may need to provide, could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Royalty or licensing agreements, if required or desirable, may be unavailable on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and may require significant royalty payments and other expenditures. Further, there is little or no information publicly available concerning market or fair values for license fees, which can lead to overpayment of license or settlement fees. In addition, some licenses may be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology licensed to us. Suppliers subject to third-party intellectual property claims also may choose or be forced
to discontinue or alter their arrangements with us, with little or no advance notice to us. Any of these events could seriously harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
In the event that we are found to infringe any third party intellectual property, we could be enjoined, or subject to other remedial orders that would prohibit us, from making, licensing, using or importing into the U.S. such products or services. In order to resume such activities with respect to any affected products or services, we (or our component suppliers) would be required to develop technical redesigns to this third party intellectual property that no longer infringe the third party intellectual property. In any efforts to develop technical redesigns for these products or services, we (or our component suppliers) may be unable to do so in a manner that does not continue to infringe the third party intellectual property or that is acceptable to our customers. These redesign efforts could be extremely costly and time consuming as well as disruptive to our other development activities and distracting to management. Moreover, such redesigns could require us to obtain approvals from the court or administrative body to resume the activities with respect to these affected solutions. We may not be successful in our efforts to obtain such approvals in a timely manner, or at all. Any failure to effectively redesign our solutions or to obtain timely clearance from the court or administrative body may cause a disruption to our product shipments and materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, reputation, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our standard sales contracts contain indemnification provisions requiring us to defend our end customers against third-party claims, including against infringement of certain intellectual property rights that could expose us to losses which could seriously harm our business, financial conditions, results of operations and prospects.
Under the indemnification provisions of our standard sales contracts, we agree to defend our end customers and channel partners against third-party claims asserting infringement of certain intellectual property rights, which may include patents, copyrights, trademarks or trade secrets, and to pay judgments entered on such claims. For example, we are currently involved in ongoing Cisco litigation claims before the USITC. An adverse ruling in such litigation may potentially expose us to claims in the event that claims are brought against our customers based on the ruling and we are required to indemnify such customers.
Our exposure under these indemnification provisions is frequently limited to the total amount paid by our end customer under the agreement. However, certain agreements include indemnification provisions that could potentially expose us to losses in excess of the amount received under the agreement. Any of these events, including claims for indemnification, could seriously harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, our competitive position could be harmed or we could be required to incur significant expenses to enforce our rights.
We depend on our ability to protect our proprietary technology. We rely on trade secret, patent, copyright and trademark laws and confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties, all of which offer only limited protection.
The process of obtaining patent protection is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. We may choose not to seek patent protection for certain innovations and may choose not to pursue patent protection in certain jurisdictions. Further, we do not know whether any of our pending patent applications will result in the issuance of patents or whether the examination process will require us to narrow our claims. To the extent that additional patents are issued from our patent applications, which is not certain, they may be contested, circumvented or invalidated in the future. Moreover, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with proprietary protection or competitive advantages, and, as with any technology, competitors may be able to develop similar or superior technologies to our own now or in the future. In addition, we rely on confidentiality or license agreements with third parties in connection with their use of our products and technology. There is no guarantee that such parties will abide by the terms of such agreements or that we will be able to adequately enforce our rights, in part because we rely on “shrink-wrap” licenses in some instances.
We have not registered our trademarks in all geographic markets. Failure to secure those registrations could adversely affect our ability to enforce and defend our trademark rights and result in indemnification claims. Further, any claim of infringement by a third party, even those claims without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against such claim, could divert management attention from our business and could require us to cease use of such intellectual property in certain geographic markets.
Despite our efforts, the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be adequate to preclude misappropriation of our proprietary information or infringement of our intellectual property rights, and our ability to police such misappropriation or infringement is uncertain, particularly in countries outside of the United States.
Detecting and protecting against the unauthorized use of our products, technology and proprietary rights is expensive, difficult and, in some cases, impossible. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects, and there is no guarantee that we would be successful. Furthermore, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to protecting their technology or intellectual property rights than we do. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property, which could result in a substantial loss of our market share.
We rely on the availability of licenses to third-party software and other intellectual property.
Many of our products and services include software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties, and we otherwise use software and other intellectual property licensed from third parties in our business. This exposes us to risks over which we may have little or no control. For example, a licensor may have difficulties keeping up with technological changes or may stop supporting the software or other intellectual property that it licenses to us. Also, it will be necessary in the future to renew licenses, expand the scope of existing licenses or seek new licenses, relating to various aspects of these products and services or otherwise relating to our business, which may result in increased license fees. These licenses may not be available on acceptable terms, if at all. In addition, a third party may assert that we or our end customers are in breach of the terms of a license, which could, among other things, give such third party the right to terminate a license or seek damages from us, or both. The inability to obtain or maintain certain licenses or other rights or to obtain or maintain such licenses or rights on favorable terms, or the need to engage in litigation regarding these matters, could result in delays in releases of products and services and could otherwise disrupt our business, until equivalent technology can be identified, licensed or developed, if at all, and integrated into our products and services or otherwise in the conduct of our business. Moreover, the inclusion in our products and services of software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties on a nonexclusive basis may limit our ability to differentiate our products from those of our competitors. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our products contain third-party open source software components, and failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open source software licenses could restrict our ability to sell our products.
Our products contain software modules licensed to us by third-party authors under “open source” licenses. Use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. Some open source licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the type of open source software that we use. If we combine our software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release portions of the source code of our software to the public. This would allow our competitors to create similar products with lower development effort and time and ultimately could result in a loss of product sales for us.
Although we monitor our use of open source software to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and these licenses could be construed in a way that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our products. Moreover, we cannot assure you that our processes for controlling our use of open source software in our products will be effective. If we are held to have breached the terms of an open source software license, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties to continue offering our products on terms that are not economically feasible, to re-engineer our products, to discontinue the sale of our products if re-engineering could not be accomplished on a timely basis or to make generally available, in source code form, our proprietary code, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our products must interoperate with operating systems, software applications and hardware that is developed by others, and if we are unable to devote the necessary resources to ensure that our products interoperate with such software and hardware, we may lose or fail to increase market share and experience a weakening demand for our products.
Generally, our products comprise only a part of the data center and must interoperate with our end customers’ existing infrastructure, specifically their networks, servers, software and operating systems, which may be manufactured by a wide variety of vendors and original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs. Our products must comply with established industry standards in order to interoperate with the servers, storage, software and other networking equipment in the data center such that all systems function efficiently together. We depend on the vendors of servers and systems in a data center to support prevailing industry standards. Often, these vendors are significantly larger and more influential in driving industry standards than we are. Also, some industry standards may not be widely adopted or implemented uniformly, and competing standards may emerge that may be preferred by our end customers.
In addition, when new or updated versions of these software operating systems or applications are introduced, we must sometimes develop updated versions of our software so that our products will interoperate properly. We may not accomplish these development efforts quickly, cost-effectively or at all. These development efforts require capital investment and the devotion of engineering resources. If we fail to maintain compatibility with these systems and applications, our end customers may not be able to adequately utilize our products, and we may lose or fail to increase market share and experience a weakening in demand for our products, among other consequences, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We provide access to our software and other selected source code to certain partners, which creates additional risk that our competitors could develop products that are similar to or better than ours.
Our success and ability to compete depend substantially upon our internally developed technology, which is incorporated in the source code for our products. We seek to protect the source code, design code, documentation and other information relating to our software, under trade secret, patent and copyright laws. However, we have chosen to provide access to selected source code of our software to several of our partners for co-development, as well as for open application programming interfaces, or APIs, formats and protocols. Though we generally control access to our source code and other intellectual property and enter into confidentiality or license agreements
with such partners as well as with our employees and consultants, this combination of procedural and contractual safeguards may be insufficient to protect our trade secrets and other rights to our technology. Our protective measures may be inadequate, especially because we may not be able to prevent our partners, employees or consultants from violating any agreements or licenses we may have in place or abusing their access granted to our source code. Improper disclosure or use of our source code could help competitors develop products similar to or better than ours.
We expect our gross margins to vary over time and to be adversely affected by numerous factors.
We expect our gross margins to vary over time and the gross margins we have achieved in recent years may not be sustainable and may be adversely affected in the future by numerous factors, including:
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changes in end-customer, geographic or product mix, including mix of configurations within each product group;
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increased price competition and changes in the actions of our competitors or their pricing strategies;
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introduction of new products, including products with price-performance advantages and new business models including the sale and delivery of more software and subscription solutions;
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increases in material or component costs including such increases caused by any restriction from sourcing components and manufacturing products internationally;
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our ability to reduce production costs;
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entry into new markets or growth in lower margin markets;
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entry in markets with different pricing and cost structures;
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increases in material costs in the event we are restricted from sourcing components and manufacturing products internationally.
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costs associated with defending intellectual property infringement and other claims and the potential outcomes of such disputes, such as those claims discussed in “Legal Proceedings,” including the Cisco and Optumsoft litigation matters;
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excess inventory and inventory holding charges;
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changes in shipment volume;
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the timing of revenue recognition and revenue deferrals;
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increased cost, loss of cost savings or dilution of savings due to changes in component pricing or charges incurred due to inventory holding periods if parts ordering does not correctly anticipate product demand or if the financial health of either contract manufacturers or suppliers deteriorates;
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lower than expected benefits from value engineering;
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changes in distribution channels;
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increased warranty costs; and
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our ability to execute our strategy and operating plans.
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We determine our operating expenses largely on the basis of anticipated revenues and a high percentage of our expenses are fixed in the short and medium term. As a result, a failure or delay in generating or recognizing revenue could cause significant variations in our operating results and operating margin from quarter to quarter. Failure to sustain or improve our gross margins reduces our profitability and may have a material adverse effect on our business and stock price.
Our sales cycles can be long and unpredictable, and our sales efforts require considerable time and expense. As a result, our sales and revenue are difficult to predict and may vary substantially from period to period, which may cause our results of operations to fluctuate significantly.
The timing of our sales and revenue recognition is difficult to predict because of the length and unpredictability of our products’ sales cycles. A sales cycle is the period between initial contact with a prospective end customer and any sale of our products. End-customer orders often involve the purchase of multiple products. These orders are complex and difficult to complete because prospective end customers generally consider a number of factors over an extended period of time before committing to purchase the products and solutions we sell. End customers, especially in the case of our large end customers, often view the purchase of our products as a significant and strategic decision and require considerable time to evaluate, test and qualify our products prior to making a purchase decision and placing an order. The length of time that end customers devote to their evaluation, contract negotiation and budgeting processes varies significantly. Our products’ sales cycles can be lengthy in certain cases, especially with respect to our prospective large end customers. During the sales cycle, we expend significant time and money on sales and marketing activities and make investments in evaluation equipment, all of which lower our operating margins, particularly if no sale occurs. Even if an end customer decides to purchase our products, there are many factors affecting the timing of our recognition of revenue, which makes our revenue difficult to forecast. For example, there may be unexpected delays in an end customer’s internal procurement processes, particularly for some of our larger end customers for which our products represent a very small percentage of their total procurement activity. There are many other factors specific to end customers
that contribute to the timing of their purchases and the variability of our revenue recognition, including the strategic importance of a particular project to an end customer, budgetary constraints and changes in their personnel.
Even after an end customer makes a purchase, there may be circumstances or terms relating to the purchase that delay our ability to recognize revenue from that purchase. For example, the sale of our products may be subject to acceptance testing. In connection with our efforts to redesign our products to address the USITC’s orders in the 945 investigation, some of our customers continue to qualify and test our redesigned products to ensure that they meet network requirements. In addition, the significance and timing of our product enhancements, and the introduction of new products by our competitors, may also affect end customers’ purchases. For all of these reasons, it is difficult to predict whether a sale will be completed, the particular period in which a sale will be completed or the period in which revenue from a sale will be recognized. If our sales cycles lengthen, our revenue could be lower than expected, which would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our business is subject to the risks of warranty claims, product returns, product liability and product defects.
Our products are very complex and despite testing prior to their release, they have contained and may contain undetected defects or errors, especially when first introduced or when new versions are released. Product defects or errors could affect the performance of our products and could delay the development or release of new products or new versions of products, adversely affect our reputation and our end customers’ willingness to buy products from us and adversely affect market acceptance or perception of our products. Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our products could cause us to lose revenue or market share, increase our service costs, cause us to incur substantial costs in redesigning the products, cause us to lose significant end-customers, subject us to liability for damages and divert our resources from other tasks, any one of which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Additionally, real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our products could result in claims by end customers for losses that they sustain. If end customers make these types of claims, we may be required, or may choose, for end-customer relations or other reasons, to expend additional resources in order to address the problem. We may also be required to repair or replace such products or provide a refund for the purchase price for such products. Liability provisions in our standard terms and conditions of sale, and those of our resellers and distributors, may not be enforceable under some circumstances or may not fully or effectively protect us from end-customer claims and related liabilities and costs, including indemnification obligations under our agreements with end customers, resellers and distributors. The sale and support of our products also entail the risk of product liability claims. Even claims that ultimately are unsuccessful could result in expenditures of funds in connection with litigation and divert management’s time and other resources.
Levels or types of insurance coverage purchased may not adequately cover claims or liabilities.
We maintain insurance to protect against certain types of claims associated with the use of our products, operations, property damage, casualty and other risks, but our insurance coverage may not adequately cover all claims or penalties. Depending on our assumptions regarding level of risk, availability, cost and other considerations, we purchase differing amounts of insurance from time to time and in various locations. Our insurance coverage is subject to deductibles, exclusions and policy limits that may require us to self-insure certain types of claims or claims in certain countries. If our level of insurance is inadequate or a loss isn’t covered by insurance, we could be required to pay unpredictable and substantial amounts that could have a substantial negative impact on our financial results or operations.
In addition to our own direct sales force, we rely on distributors, systems integrators and value-added resellers to sell our products, and our failure to effectively develop, manage or prevent disruptions to our distribution channels and the processes and procedures that support them could cause a reduction in the number of end customers of our products.
Our future success is highly dependent upon maintaining our relationships with distributors, systems integrators and value-added resellers and establishing additional sales channel relationships. We anticipate that sales of our products to a limited number of channel partners will continue to account for a material portion of our total product revenue for the foreseeable future. We provide our channel partners with specific training and programs to assist them in selling our products, but these steps may not be effective. In addition, our channel partners may be unsuccessful in marketing, selling and supporting our products and services. If we are unable to develop and maintain effective sales incentive programs for our channel partners, we may not be able to incentivize these partners to sell our products to end customers. These partners may have incentives to promote our competitors’ products to the detriment of our own or may cease selling our products altogether. One of our channel partners could elect to consolidate or enter into a strategic partnership with one of our competitors, which could reduce or eliminate our future opportunities with that channel partner. Our agreements with our channel partners may generally be terminated for any reason by either party with advance notice. We may be unable to retain these channel partners or secure additional or replacement channel partners. The loss of one or more of our significant channel partners requires extensive training, and any new or expanded relationship with a channel partner may take several months or more to achieve productivity.
Where we rely on the channel partners for sales of our products, we may have little or no contact with the ultimate users of our products that purchase through such channel partners, thereby making it more difficult for us to establish brand awareness, ensure proper delivery and installation of our products, service ongoing end-customer requirements, estimate end-customer demand and respond to evolving end-customer needs. In addition, our channel partner sales structure could subject us to lawsuits, potential liability and reputational harm if, for example, any of our channel partners misrepresent the functionality of our products or services to end customers, fail to
comply with their contractual obligations or violate laws or our corporate policies. If we fail to effectively manage our existing sales channels, or if our channel partners are unsuccessful in fulfilling the orders for our products, if we are unable to enter into arrangements with, and retain a sufficient number of, high-quality channel partners in each of the regions in which we sell products and keep them motivated to sell our products, our ability to sell our products and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects will be harmed.
A portion of our revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks.
We anticipate increasing our sales efforts to U.S. and foreign, federal, state and local governmental end customers in the future. Sales to government entities are subject to a number of risks. Selling to government entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate a sale. The substantial majority of our sales to date to government entities have been made indirectly through our channel partners. Government certification requirements for products like ours may change and, in doing so, restrict our ability to sell into the government sector until we have attained revised certifications. Government demand and payment for our products and services may be affected by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our products and services. Government entities may have statutory, contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with our distributors and resellers for convenience or due to a default, and any such termination may adversely impact our future business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Selling to government entities may also require us to comply with various regulations that are not applicable to sales to non-government entities, including regulations that may relate to pricing, classified material and other matters. Complying with such regulations may also require us to put in place controls and procedures to monitor compliance with the applicable regulations that may be costly or not possible. We are not currently certified to perform work under classified contracts with government entities. Failure to comply with any such regulations could adversely affect our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition. Governments routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government ceasing to buy our products and services, a reduction of revenue, fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit uncovers improper or illegal activities, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. The U.S. government may require certain products that it purchases to be manufactured in the U.S. and other relatively high-cost manufacturing locations, and we may not manufacture all products in locations that meet these requirements. Any of these and other circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We may invest in or acquire other businesses which could require significant management attention, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
As part of our business strategy, we may make investments in complementary companies, products or technologies which could involve licenses, additional channels of distribution, discount pricing or investments in or acquisitions of other companies. However, we do not have significant experience in making investments in other companies nor have we made any acquisitions to date, and as a result, our ability as an organization to evaluate and/or complete investments or acquire and integrate other companies, products or technologies in a successful manner is unproven. We may not be able to find suitable investment or acquisition candidates, and we may not be able to complete such investments or acquisitions on favorable terms, if at all. If we do complete investments or acquisitions, we may not ultimately strengthen our competitive position or achieve our goals, and any investments or acquisitions we complete could be viewed negatively by our end customers, investors and securities analysts.
In addition, investments and acquisitions may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. For example, if we are unsuccessful at integrating any acquisitions or retaining key talent from those acquisitions, or the technologies associated with such acquisitions, into our company, the business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects of the combined company could be adversely affected. Any integration process may require significant time and resources, and we may not be able to manage the process successfully. We may not successfully evaluate or utilize the acquired technology or personnel or accurately forecast the financial effects of an acquisition transaction, including accounting charges. We may have to pay cash, incur debt or issue equity securities to pay for any such investment or acquisition, each of which could adversely affect our financial condition or the market price of our common stock. The sale of equity or issuance of debt to finance any such acquisitions could result in dilution to our stockholders. The incurrence of indebtedness would result in increased fixed obligations and could also include covenants or other restrictions that would impede our ability to manage our operations. Moreover, if the investment or acquisition becomes impaired, we may be required to take an impairment charge, which could adversely affect our financial condition or the market price of our common stock.
If we needed to raise additional capital to expand our operations, invest in new products or for other corporate purposes, our failure to do so on favorable terms could reduce our ability to compete and could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We expect that our existing cash and cash equivalents, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for the foreseeable future. If we did need to raise additional funds to expand our operations, invest in new products or for other corporate purposes, we may not be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, if at all. If we raise additional equity financing, our stockholders may experience significant dilution of their ownership interests, and the market price of our common stock could decline. Furthermore, if we engage in debt financing, the holders of such debt would have priority over the holders of common stock, and we may be required
to accept terms that restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness or impose other restrictions on our business. We may also be required to take other actions that would otherwise be in the interests of the debt holders, including maintaining specified liquidity or other ratios, any of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. If we need additional capital and cannot raise it on acceptable terms, if at all, we may not be able to, among other things:
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evolve or enhance our products and services;
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continue to expand our sales and marketing and research and development organizations;
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acquire complementary technologies, products or businesses;
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expand operations in the U.S. or internationally;
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hire, train and retain employees; or
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respond to competitive pressures or unanticipated working capital requirements.
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Our failure to do any of these things could seriously harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could fall below expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the market price of our common stock.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as described in Part II Item 7 of “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to revenue recognition, inventory valuation and contract manufacturer/supplier liabilities, income taxes and loss contingencies. If our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, our results of operations may be adversely affected and may fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the market price of our common stock.
We are exposed to the credit risk of our channel partners and some of our end customers, which could result in material losses.
Most of our sales are on an open credit basis, with standard payment terms of 30 days in the United States and, because of local customs or conditions, longer in some markets outside the U.S. We monitor individual end-customer payment capability in granting such open credit arrangements, seek to limit such open credit to amounts we believe the end customers can pay and maintain reserves we believe are adequate to cover exposure for doubtful accounts. We are unable to recognize revenue from shipments until the collection of those amounts becomes reasonably assured. Any significant delay or default in the collection of significant accounts receivable could result in an increased need for us to obtain working capital from other sources, possibly on worse terms than we could have negotiated if we had established such working capital resources prior to such delays or defaults. Any significant default could adversely affect our results of operations and delay our ability to recognize revenue.
A material portion of our sales is derived through our distributors, systems integrators and value-added resellers. Some of our distributors, systems integrators and value-added resellers may experience financial difficulties, which could adversely affect our collection of accounts receivable. Distributors tend to have more limited financial resources than other systems integrators, value-added resellers and end customers. Distributors represent potential sources of increased credit risk because they may be less likely to have the reserve resources required to meet payment obligations. Our exposure to credit risks of our channel partners may increase if our channel partners and their end customers are adversely affected by global or regional economic conditions. One or more of these channel partners could delay payments or default on credit extended to them, either of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our sales contracts are primarily denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore substantially all of our revenue is not subject to foreign currency risk. However, a strengthening U.S. dollar could increase the real cost of our products to our end customers outside of the U.S., which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. In addition, a decrease in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to foreign currencies could increase our product and operating costs in foreign locations. Further, an increasing portion of our operating expenses is incurred outside the U.S., is denominated in foreign currencies and is subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. If we are not able to successfully hedge against the risks associated with the currency fluctuations, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be adversely affected.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods and other catastrophic events and to interruption by manmade problems such as terrorism.
Our corporate headquarters and the operations of our key manufacturing vendors, logistics providers and partners, as well as many of our customers, are located in areas exposed to risks of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, including the San Francisco Bay area, Japan and Taiwan. A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, tsunami, fire or a flood, or other catastrophic event such as a disease outbreak, could have a material adverse effect on our or their business, which could in turn materially affect our financial condition, results of operations and prospects. For example, in the event our service providers’ information technology systems or manufacturing or logistics abilities are hindered by any of the events discussed above, shipments could be delayed, which could result in missed financial targets, such as revenue and shipment targets, for a particular quarter. Further, if a natural disaster occurs in a region from which we derive a significant portion of our revenue, end customers in that region may delay or forego purchases of our products, which may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. In addition, acts of terrorism could cause disruptions in our business or the business of our manufacturer, logistics providers, partners or end customers or the economy as a whole. Given our typical concentration of sales at each quarter end, any disruption in the business of our manufacturer, logistics providers, partners or end customers that affects sales at the end of our quarter could have a particularly significant adverse effect on our quarterly results. All of the aforementioned risks may be augmented if our disaster recovery plans and those of our manufacturers, logistics providers or partners prove to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above results in delays or cancellations of end-customer orders, or delays in the manufacture, deployment or shipment of our products, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects would be adversely affected.
Breaches of our cybersecurity systems could degrade our ability to conduct our business operations and deliver products and services to our customers, delay our ability to recognize revenue, compromise the integrity of our software products, result in significant data losses and the theft of our intellectual property, damage our reputation, expose us to liability to third parties and require us to incur significant additional costs to maintain the security of our networks and data.
We increasingly depend upon our IT systems to conduct virtually all of our business operations, ranging from our internal operations and product development activities to our marketing and sales efforts and communications with our customers and business partners. Computer programmers may attempt to penetrate our network security, or that of our website, and misappropriate our proprietary information or cause interruptions of our service. Because the techniques used by such computer programmers to access or sabotage networks change frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques. In addition, sophisticated hardware and operating system software and applications that we produce or procure from third parties may contain defects in design or manufacture, including “bugs” and other problems that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the system. We have also outsourced a number of our business functions to third-parties, including our manufacturers, logistics providers, and cloud service providers, and our business operations also depend, in part, on the success of these third parties' own cybersecurity measures. Similarly, we rely upon distributors, resellers and system integrators to sell our products and our sales operations depend, in part, on the reliability of their cybersecurity measures. Additionally, we depend upon our employees to appropriately handle confidential data and deploy our IT resources in safe and secure fashion that does not expose our network systems to security breaches and the loss of data. Accordingly, if our cybersecurity systems and those of our contractors fail to protect against unauthorized access, sophisticated cyber attacks and the mishandling of data by our employees and contractors, our ability to conduct our business effectively could be damaged in a number of ways, including:
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sensitive data regarding our business, including intellectual property and other proprietary data, could be stolen;
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our electronic communications systems, including email and other methods, could be disrupted, and our ability to conduct our business operations could be seriously damaged until such systems can be restored;
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our ability to process customer orders and electronically deliver products and services could be degraded, and our distribution channels could be disrupted, resulting in delays in revenue recognition;
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defects and security vulnerabilities could be introduced into our software, thereby damaging the reputation and perceived reliability and security of our products and potentially making the data systems of our customers vulnerable to further data loss and cyber incidents; and
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personally identifiable data of our customers, employees and business partners could be compromised.
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Should any of the above events occur, we could be subject to significant claims for liability from our customers and regulatory actions from governmental agencies. In addition, our ability to protect our intellectual property rights could be compromised and our reputation and competitive position could be significantly harmed. Also, the regulatory and contractual actions, litigations, investigations, fines, penalties and liabilities relating to data breaches that result in losses of personally identifiable or credit card information of users of our services can be significant in terms of fines and reputational impact and necessitate changes to our business operations that may be disruptive to us. Additionally, we could incur significant costs in order to upgrade our cybersecurity systems and remediate damages. Consequently, our financial performance and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We believe our long-term value as a company will be greater if we focus primarily on growth instead of profitability.
Our business strategy is to focus primarily on our long-term growth. As a result, our profitability in any given period may be lower than it would be if our strategy was to maximize short-term profitability. Expenditures on research and development, sales and
marketing, infrastructure and other such investments may not ultimately grow our business, prospects or cause long term profitability. For example, in order to support our strong growth, we have accelerated our investment in infrastructure, such as enterprise resource planning software and other technologies to improve the efficiency of our operations. As a result, we expect our levels of operating profit could decline in the short to medium term. If we are ultimately unable to achieve or maintain profitability at the level anticipated by analysts and our stockholders, the market price of our common stock may decline.
We may not generate positive returns on our research and development investments.
Developing our products is expensive, and the investment in product development may involve a long payback cycle. For the years ended December 31,
2017
,
2016
and
2015
, our research and development expenses were
$349.6 million
, or approximately
21.2%
of our revenue,
$273.6 million
, or approximately
24.2%
of our revenue, and
$209.4 million
, or approximately
25.0%
of our revenue, respectively. We expect to continue to invest heavily in software development in order to expand the capabilities of our cloud networking platform, introduce new products and features and build upon our technology leadership. We believe one of our greatest strengths lies in the speed of our product development efforts. By investing in research and development, we believe we will be well positioned to continue our rapid growth and take advantage of our large market opportunity. We expect that our results of operations will be impacted by the timing and size of these investments. These investments may take several years to generate positive returns, if ever.
Changes in our provision for income taxes or our effective tax rate, the enactment of new tax laws or changes in the application of existing tax laws of various jurisdictions or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income tax returns could adversely affect our results.
Our provision for income taxes is subject to volatility and could be adversely affected by several factors, many of which are outside of our control, including earnings that are lower than anticipated in countries that have lower tax rates and higher than anticipated in countries that have higher tax rates; our ability to generate and use tax attributes; changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities; expiration of or lapses in the federal research and development ("R&D”) tax credit laws; transfer pricing adjustments, including the effect of acquisitions on our inter-company R&D cost sharing arrangement and legal structure; tax effects of nondeductible compensation, including certain stock-based compensation; tax costs related to inter-company realignments; changes in accounting principles; adverse tax consequences, including imposition of withholding or other taxes on payments by subsidiaries or customers; a change in our decision to indefinitely reinvest foreign earnings or changes in tax laws and regulations, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the "Tax Act") enacted on December 22, 2017 and the new U.S. changes to the taxation of earnings of our foreign subsidiaries.
Significant judgment is required to evaluate our tax positions and determine our provision for income taxes. The accounting guidance for uncertainty in income taxes applies to all income tax positions, including the potential recovery of previously paid taxes, which if settled unfavorably could adversely affect our provision for income taxes or additional paid-in capital. In addition, tax laws are dynamic and subject to change as evidenced by the Tax Act. As new laws are passed and new interpretations of the law are issued or applied, our provision for income taxes may be affected. Recent changes to U.S. tax laws, including taxation of earnings outside of the U.S., the introduction of a base erosion anti-abuse tax and the disallowance of tax deductions for certain book expense, as well as changes to U.S. tax laws that may be enacted in the future, could impact the tax treatment of our earnings, as well as cash and cash equivalent balances we currently maintain. Furthermore, due to shifting economic and political conditions, tax policies or rates in various jurisdictions may be subject to significant change.
Further, we are subject to the examination of our income tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service and other tax authorities. Audits by the Internal Revenue Service or other tax authorities are subject to inherent uncertainties and could result in unfavorable outcomes, including potential fines or penalties. As we operate in numerous taxing jurisdictions, the application of tax laws can be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by tax authorities of these jurisdictions. The expense of defending and resolving such an audit may be significant. The amount of time to resolve an audit is also unpredictable and may divert management’s attention from our business operations. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. We cannot assure you that fluctuations in our provision for income taxes or our effective tax rate, the enactment of new tax laws or changes in the application or interpretation of existing tax laws or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our tax returns by tax authorities will not have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.
As a public company, we are subject to the reporting and corporate governance requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange and other applicable securities rules and regulations, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, or the Dodd-Frank Act. Compliance with these rules and regulations and the attendant responsibilities of management and the board, may make it more difficult to attract and retain executive officers and members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our Audit Committee and Compensation Committee, has increased our legal and financial compliance costs, made some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increased demand on our systems and resources. Among other things, the Exchange Act requires that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and results of operations and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required,
improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. In addition, if our internal control over financial reporting is not effective as defined under Section 404, we could be subject to one or more investigations or enforcement actions by state or federal regulatory agencies, stockholder lawsuits or other adverse actions requiring us to incur defense costs, pay fines, settlements or judgments. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Although we have already hired additional employees to help comply with these requirements, we may need to further expand our legal and finance departments in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses.
In addition, changing laws, regulations, and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, such as continued rulemaking pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act and related rules and regulations, are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations, and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expense and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business and prospects may be harmed. As a result of disclosure of information in the filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be harmed, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
In addition, as a result of our disclosure obligations as a public company, we will have reduced strategic flexibility and will be under pressure to focus on short-term results, which may adversely affect our ability to achieve long-term profitability. We also believe that being a public company and these new rules and regulations makes it more expensive for us to obtain and maintain director and officer liability insurance, and in the future, we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our Audit Committee and Compensation Committee, and qualified executive officers.
Failure to comply with governmental laws and regulations could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Our business is subject to regulation by various federal, state, local and foreign governmental agencies, including agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing employment and labor laws, workplace safety, product safety, environmental laws, consumer protection laws, anti-bribery laws, import/export controls, federal securities laws and tax laws and regulations. In certain jurisdictions, these regulatory requirements may be more stringent than those in the United States. For example, the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which will be enforced starting in May 2018. The GDPR requires substantial changes to the handling and storage of data and administrative fines for violations, which can be up four percent of the previous year’s annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher. From time to time, we may receive inquiries from such governmental agencies or we may make voluntary disclosures regarding our compliance with applicable governmental regulations or requirements relating to import/export controls, federal securities laws and tax laws and regulations which could lead to formal investigations. Noncompliance with applicable government regulations or requirements could subject us to sanctions, mandatory product recalls, enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, fines, damages, civil and criminal penalties or injunctions. If any governmental sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially adversely affected. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and an increase in professional fees. Enforcement actions and sanctions could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we violate these controls.
Our products may be subject to various export controls and because we incorporate encryption technology into certain of our products, certain of our products may be exported from various countries only with the required export license or through an export license exception. If we were to fail to comply with the applicable export control laws, customs regulations, economic sanctions or other applicable laws, we could be subject to monetary damages or the imposition of restrictions which could be material to our business, operating results and prospects and could also harm our reputation. Further, there could be criminal penalties for knowing or willful violations, including incarceration for culpable employees and managers. Obtaining the necessary export license or other authorization for a particular sale may be time-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Furthermore, certain export control and economic sanctions laws prohibit the shipment of certain products, technology, software and services to embargoed countries and sanctioned governments, entities, and persons. Even though we take precautions to ensure that we and our channel partners comply with
all relevant regulations, any failure by us or our channel partners to comply with such regulations could have negative consequences, including reputational harm, government investigations and penalties.
As our company grows we also continue developing procedures and controls to comply with export control and other applicable laws. Historically, we have had some instances where we inadvertently have not fully complied with certain export control laws, but we have disclosed them to, and implemented corrective actions with, the appropriate government agencies.
In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology, including through import permit and license requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our products or could limit our end customers’ ability to implement our products in those countries. Any change in export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations or change in the countries, governments, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations could result in decreased use of our products by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our products to, existing or potential end customers with international operations or create delays in the introduction of our products into international markets. Any decreased use of our products or limitation on our ability to export or sell our products could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
If we or our partners fail to comply with environmental requirements, our business, financial condition, results of operations, prospects and reputation could be adversely affected.
We and our partners, including our contract manufacturers, are subject to various local, state, federal and international environmental laws and regulations, including laws governing the hazardous material content of our products and laws relating to the collection, recycling and disposal of electrical and electronic equipment. Examples of these laws and regulations include the European Union, or EU, Restrictions on the use of Hazardous Substances Directive, or RoHS Directive, and the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, or WEEE Directive, as well as the implementing legislation of the EU member states. Similar laws and regulations have been passed or are pending in China, South Korea, Norway and Japan and may be enacted in other regions, including in the U.S., and we or our partners, including our contract manufacturers, are, or may in the future be, subject to these laws and regulations.
The EU RoHS Directive and the similar laws of other jurisdictions limit the content of certain hazardous materials such as lead, mercury and cadmium in the manufacture of electrical equipment, including our products. Our products currently comply with the RoHS Directive; however, if there are future changes to this directive, we may be required to re-engineer our products to use components compatible with these regulations. This re-engineering and component substitution could result in additional costs to us or disrupt our operations or logistics.
We are also subject to environmental laws and regulations governing the management and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Our failure, or the failure of our partners, including our contract manufacturers, to comply with past, present and future environmental laws could result in fines, penalties, third-party claims, reduced sales of our products, substantial product inventory write-offs and reputational damage, any of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. We also expect that our business will be affected by new environmental laws and regulations on an ongoing basis applicable to us and our partners, including our contract manufacturers. To date, our expenditures for environmental compliance have not had a material effect on our results of operations or cash flows. Although we cannot predict the future effect of such laws or regulations, they will likely result in additional costs or require us to change the content or manufacturing of our products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Regulations related to conflict minerals may cause us to incur additional expenses and could limit the supply and increase the costs of certain metals used in the manufacturing of our products.
As a public company, we are subject to requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act that require us to perform diligence, and disclose and report whether or not our products contain “conflict minerals” mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries and procedures regarding a manufacturer’s efforts to prevent the sourcing of such “conflict minerals.”
The implementation of these requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability and pricing of the materials used in the manufacture of components used in our products. In addition, we will incur additional costs to comply with these disclosure requirements, including costs related to conducting diligence procedures and, if applicable, potential changes to products, processes or sources of supply as a consequence of such verification activities. We may also face reputational harm if we determine that certain of our products contain minerals not determined to be conflict-free or if we are unable to alter our products, processes or sources of supply to avoid such materials.
Risks Related to the Securities Markets and Ownership of Our Common Stock
The trading price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile, and the value of your investment could decline.
The trading price of our common stock has historically been and is likely to continue to be volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These fluctuations could cause you to lose all or part of your investment in our common stock. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the market price of our common stock include the following:
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actual or anticipated announcements of new products, services or technologies, commercial relationships, acquisitions or other events by us or our competitors;
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forward-looking statements related to future revenue, gross margins and earnings per share;
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price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
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litigation involving us, our industry, or both including events occurring in our litigation with Cisco Systems and Optumsoft;
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manufacturing, supply or distribution shortages or constraints, or challenges with adding or changing our manufacturing process or supply chain;
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significant volatility in the market price and trading volume of technology companies in general and of companies in the IT security industry in particular;
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fluctuations in the trading volume of our shares or the size of our public float;
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sales by our officers, directors or significant stockholders;
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actual or anticipated changes or fluctuations in our results of operations;
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adverse changes to our relationships with any of our channel partners;
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whether our results of operations or our financial outlook for future fiscal periods meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors;
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actual or anticipated changes in the expectations of investors or securities analysts;
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regulatory developments in the U.S., foreign countries or both;
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general economic conditions and trends;
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major catastrophic events;
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sales of large blocks of our common stock; or
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departures of key personnel.
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In addition, technology stocks have historically experienced high levels of volatility and, if the market for technology stocks or the stock market in general experiences a loss of investor confidence, the market price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. The market price of our common stock might also decline in reaction to events that affect other companies in our industry even if these events do not directly affect us. In the past, following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been brought against that company. If the market price of our common stock is volatile, we may become the target of securities litigation. Securities litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources from our business and prospects. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or the perception that such sales might occur, could reduce the market price that our common stock might otherwise attain and may dilute your voting power and your ownership interest in us.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock and may make it more difficult for you to sell your common stock at a time and price that you deem appropriate and may dilute your voting power and your ownership interest in us.
Based on approximately
73.7 million
shares outstanding as of
December 31, 2017
, holders of approximately
24.7%
of our common stock have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering the sale of their shares or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders. In addition, we have registered the offer and sale of all shares of common stock that we may issue under our equity compensation plans. If holders, by exercising their registration rights, sell large numbers of shares, it could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
We may also issue shares of common stock or securities convertible into our common stock in connection with a financing, acquisition, our equity incentive plans, or otherwise. Any such issuances would result in dilution to our existing stockholders and could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
Insiders have substantial control over us, which could limit your ability to influence the outcome of key transactions, including a change of control.
Our directors, executive officers and each of our stockholders who own greater than 10% of our outstanding common stock together with their affiliates, in the aggregate, beneficially own approximately
23.8%
of the outstanding shares of our common stock,
based on shares outstanding as of
December 31, 2017
. As a result, these stockholders, if acting together, could exercise a significant level of influence over matters requiring approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors and the approval of mergers, acquisitions or other extraordinary transactions. They may also have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and which may be adverse to your interests. This concentration of ownership may also discourage a potential investor from acquiring our common stock due to the limited voting power of such stock or otherwise may have the effect of delaying, preventing or
deterring a change of control of our company, could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common stock as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our common stock.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared nor paid any dividends on our common stock. We intend to retain any earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business and prospects, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the future. As a result, you may only receive a return on your investment in our common stock if the market price of our common stock increases.
If securities or industry analysts publish inaccurate or unfavorable research reports about our business or prospects, the market price of our common stock and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock, to some extent, depends on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business or prospects. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us should downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our shares, the market price of our common stock would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts should cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause the market price of our common stock or trading volume to decline.
Our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage takeover attempts and lead to management entrenchment.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of our company. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to elect directors that are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or take other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. These provisions include:
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a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors;
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the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
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the exclusive right of our board of directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
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a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
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the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by the chairman of our board of directors, our president, our secretary or a majority vote of our board of directors, which could delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
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the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all of the then outstanding shares of the voting stock, voting together as a single class, to amend the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation relating to the issuance of preferred stock and management of our business or our amended and restated bylaws, which may inhibit the ability of an acquirer to effect such amendments to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt;
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the ability of our board of directors, by majority vote, to amend the bylaws, which may allow our board of directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend the bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
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advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
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In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a certain period of time.
The issuance of additional stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our stock incentive plans or otherwise will dilute all other stockholders.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue up to
1,000,000,000
shares of common stock and up to
100,000,000
shares of preferred stock with such rights and preferences as may be determined by our board of directors. Subject to compliance with applicable rules and regulations, we may issue our shares of common stock or securities convertible into our common stock from time to time in connection with a financing, acquisition, investment, our stock incentive plans or otherwise. We may from time to time issue additional shares of common stock at a discount from the then market price of our common stock. Any issuance of stock could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and cause the market price of our common stock to decline.