VMW Vmware LLC - 10-K

ITEM 1A.    RISK FACTORS

The risk factors that appear below could materially affect our business, financial condition and operating results. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only risks and uncertainties we face. Our business is also subject to general risks and uncertainties that affect many other companies.

Risks Related to Our Pending Acquisition by Broadcom

The pendency of our acquisition by Broadcom may have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial position.

On May 26, 2022, we entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”) with Broadcom Inc. (“Broadcom”), pursuant to which Broadcom agreed to acquire us subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein. Our pending acquisition by Broadcom may have an adverse effect on our operating results in the near term if our customers delay, defer, or cancel purchases pending completion of the transaction. In addition, the pendency of the transaction may cause reluctance by customers to begin or continue to do business with us due to potential uncertainty about the direction of our products and solutions following consummation of the transaction.

We are subject to additional risks in connection with the pendency of the proposed transaction, including:

• Parties with which we do business may be uncertain as to the effects the transaction may have on them, including with respect to current or future business relationships with us, and these relationships may be subject to disruption as channel partners, customers, suppliers and other persons with whom we have a business relationship may delay or defer certain business decisions or might decide to terminate, change or renegotiate their relationships with us, as applicable, or consider entering into business relationships with parties other than us. The risk, and adverse effect, of any disruption could be exacerbated by a delay in the consummation of the transaction or termination of the Merger Agreement;

• The restrictions imposed on our business and operations pursuant to certain covenants set forth in the Merger Agreement obligates us to generally conduct our business in a commercially reasonable manner and in all material respects in the ordinary course of business consistent with past practice and may prevent us from pursuing certain opportunities, entering into certain contracts with customers, resellers and suppliers, or taking certain other actions without Broadcom’s approval;

• The Merger Agreement limits our ability to pursue alternatives to the transaction and may discourage other companies from trying to acquire us;

• We may be unable to attract, recruit, retain and motivate current and prospective employees who may be uncertain about their future roles following completion of the proposed transaction, and our operations, including our ability to execute our strategy and our cybersecurity and other risk management programs, could suffer due to employee attrition or a reduction in employee productivity as a result of this uncertainty;

• The pendency and outcome of legal proceedings that have been and may in the future be instituted against us, our directors, executive officers and others relating to the proposed transaction; and

• The pursuit of the transaction and planning for the integration has placed and may continue to place a significant burden on management and other internal resources, and the diversion of management’s attention away from day-to-day business concerns and other opportunities that may have been beneficial to us could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

In addition, since the merger consideration our stockholders will receive in the transaction will be in the form of both cash and common stock of Broadcom, our stock price will be impacted by changes in Broadcom’s stock price. Changes to Broadcom’s stock price may result from a variety of factors, such as changes in its business operations and outlook, changes in general market and economic conditions and regulatory considerations. These factors are beyond our control.

Completion of the transaction is subject to the conditions contained in the Merger Agreement, including regulatory approvals, which may not be received, may take longer than expected or may impose conditions that are not presently anticipated or that cannot be met, and if these conditions are not satisfied or waived, the transaction will not be completed.

Before the transaction may be completed, various consents, clearances, approvals, authorizations and declarations of non-objection, or expiration of waiting periods (or extensions thereof), must be obtained from certain regulatory and governmental

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authorities in the U.S., in the European Union and in certain other jurisdictions. In addition, the transaction may be reviewed under antitrust statutes or foreign direct investment regimes of other governmental authorities, including U.S. state laws.

In deciding whether to grant the required regulatory approval, consent or clearance, the relevant governmental entities will consider the effect of the transaction on competition within their relevant jurisdiction. Regulatory and governmental entities may impose conditions on their respective approvals, in which case lengthy negotiations may ensue among such regulatory or governmental entities, Broadcom and us. Such conditions, any such negotiations and the process of obtaining regulatory approvals could have the effect of delaying or preventing consummation of the transaction.

Subject to the terms of the Merger Agreement, we have agreed to use our reasonable best efforts to take all actions and to do, or cause to be done, all things necessary, proper or advisable under applicable laws to consummate the transaction as promptly as practicable . Nonetheless, many of the closing conditions are not within our control. For example, we cannot be certain that these regulatory clearances and approvals will be obtained in a timely manner or at all, or that the granting of these regulatory clearances and approvals will not involve the imposition of regulatory remedies on the completion of the transaction.

If any of these conditions are not satisfied or waived prior to May 26, 2023, which deadline may be extended to November 26, 2023 under certain circumstances, it is possible that the Merger Agreement will be terminated.

Lawsuits have been and may in the future be filed against us and our directors challenging the transaction, and an adverse ruling in any such lawsuit may delay or prevent the consummation of the transaction and result in substantial costs to us.

In connection with the transaction, litigation was previously filed against VMware and its board of directors and has now been dismissed.

However, it is possible that additional litigation against us or our directors may be filed in the future as securities class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits are often brought against public companies that have entered into acquisition, merger or other business combination agreements like the Merger Agreement. Even if such a lawsuit is without merit, defending against these claims can result in substantial costs and divert management time and resources. An adverse judgment could result in monetary damages, which could have a negative impact on our liquidity and financial condition. The outcome of any litigation is uncertain, and any such lawsuits could delay or prevent the consummation of the transaction and result in substantial costs to us. Any such actions may create uncertainty relating to the transaction and may be costly and distracting to management.

Further, one of the conditions to the completion of the transaction is that no injunction or law by any governmental entity of competent jurisdiction will be in effect that has the effect of restraining, enjoining or otherwise prohibiting the consummation of the transaction. As such, if an injunction prohibiting the consummation of the transaction is obtained, that injunction may prevent the transactions from becoming effective or from becoming effective within the expected timeframe.

The failure to complete the planned acquisition of us by Broadcom could have a material and adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows, and stock price.

The transaction, which is expected to close in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023, is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of customary closing conditions, and there is no assurance that all of the various conditions will be satisfied, or that the transaction will be completed on the proposed terms, within the expected timeframe or at all. The closing of the transaction may be delayed, and the transaction may ultimately not be completed, due to a number of factors, including as a result of the failure to obtain necessary government or regulatory approval or to satisfy any other requisite closing condition as described in the Merger Agreement and current and potential future stockholder litigation and other legal and regulatory proceedings, among others.

If the transaction does not close, we may suffer consequences that could adversely affect our ongoing and future business, financial condition, operating results, cash flows and stock price, and our stockholders would be exposed to additional risks, including for example:

• To the extent that the current market price of our stock reflects an assumption that the transaction will be completed, the price of our common stock could decrease;

• Investor confidence in us could decline, additional stockholder litigation could be brought against us, relationships with existing and prospective customers and other business partners may be adversely impacted, we may be unable to hire or retain key personnel, and we may not be able to shift or overcome negative reactions from analysts and other media professionals in a timely manner or at all;

• Any disruptions to our business resulting from the announcement and pendency of the transaction, including adverse changes in our relationships with employees, customers and other business partners, may continue or intensify;

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• We have incurred significant costs, including professional services fees and other transaction costs, in connection with the proposed transaction that we would be unable to recover, and devoted substantial commitments of time and resources by our management, which could have otherwise been devoted to day-to-day operations and other opportunities that could have been beneficial to us as an independent company; and

• If certain circumstances that give rise to a termination of the Merger Agreement occur, we may be required to pay Broadcom a termination fee of $1.5 billion.

There can be no assurance that our business, relationships with other parties, liquidity or financial condition will not be adversely affected, as compared to the condition prior to the announcement of the transaction, if the transaction is delayed or not consummated.

Operation of Business and Strategic Risks

A significant decrease in demand for our data center virtualization products would adversely affect our operating results.

A significant portion of our revenue is derived, and will for the foreseeable future continue to be derived, from our data center virtualization products. As more businesses achieve high levels of virtualization in their data centers, the market for our vSphere product continues to mature. Additionally, as businesses increasingly utilize public cloud and SaaS-based offerings, they are building more of their new compute workloads off-premises and are increasingly shifting some of their existing and many of their new workloads to public cloud providers, thereby limiting growth and potentially reducing the market for on-premises deployments of vSphere. Although sales of vSphere have declined as a portion of our overall business and we expect this trend to continue, vSphere remains key to our future growth as it serves as the foundation for our SDDC, network virtualization and subscription and SaaS offerings. Although we have launched, and are continuing to develop, products to extend our vSphere-based SDDC offerings to the public cloud, due to our product concentration, a significant decrease in demand for our server virtualization products would adversely affect our operating results.

Our subscription and SaaS offerings, which constitute a growing portion of our business, and our initiatives to extend our data center virtualization and container platforms into the public cloud involve various risks, including, among others, reliance on third-party providers for data center space and colocation services and on public cloud providers to prevent service disruptions.

As we continue to develop and offer subscription and SaaS versions of our products, we must continue to evolve our processes to meet various intellectual property, regulatory, contractual and service compliance challenges, including compliance with licenses for open source and third-party software embedded in our offerings, compliance with export control and privacy regulations, protecting our services from external threats or inappropriate use, maintaining the continuous service levels and data security expected by our customers and adapting our go-to-market efforts. The expansion of our subscription and SaaS offerings also requires significant investments, and our operating margins, results of operations and operating cash flows may be adversely affected if our new offerings are not widely adopted by customers.

Additionally, our subscription and SaaS offerings rely upon third-party providers to supply data center space, equipment maintenance and other colocation services, and our initiatives to extend our virtualization and container platforms into the public cloud rely upon the ability of our public cloud and VCPP partners to maintain continuous service availability and protect customer data on their services. Although we have entered into various agreements for the lease of data center space, equipment maintenance and other services, third parties could fail to live up to their contractual obligations. The failure of a third-party provider to prevent service disruptions (including as a result of climate change), data losses or security breaches may require us to issue credits or refunds or indemnify or otherwise be liable to customers or third parties for damages that may occur, and contractual provisions with our third-party providers and public cloud partners may limit our recourse against the third-party provider or public cloud partner responsible for such failure. Additionally, if these third-party providers fail to deliver on their obligations, our reputation could be damaged, our customers could lose confidence in us, and our ability to maintain and expand our subscription and SaaS offerings would be impaired.

Our success depends upon our ability to adapt our business and pricing models to a subscription and SaaS model appropriately.

We continue to transition our portfolio from a perpetual license model to subscription and SaaS offerings. During this transition, we are recognizing less revenue up front than we would otherwise recognize under the license agreements through which we have typically sold our established offerings. Additionally, in order to provide customers flexibility, we offer one- and three-year term licenses for certain portions of our portfolio, which have certain characteristics that are similar to subscription products but are accounted for as license and services revenue. Furthermore, during the second half of fiscal 2023, we introduced termination for convenience (“TFC”) clauses with respect to term-based license offerings in certain enterprise

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agreements (“EAs”). Revenue from such term license offerings subject to TFC clauses is recognized ratably as subscription and SaaS revenue, rather than as license revenue, due to the requirement to refund any unused, pre-paid fees upon termination. Our transition to these term-based licenses and subscription and SaaS offerings involves various risks that may negatively affect our operating results, including:

• We may fail to set pricing for subscription and SaaS offerings at levels appropriate to maintain our revenue streams or our customers may choose to deploy products from our competitors that they believe are priced more favorably.

• We may fail to accurately predict subscription renewal rates or their impact on operating results, and because revenue from subscriptions is recognized for our services over the term of the subscription, downturns or upturns in sales may not be immediately reflected in our results.

• As customers transition to our subscription and SaaS products and services, our revenue and license revenue growth rates have been and may in the future be adversely impacted during the period of transition when we recognize less revenue up front than we would otherwise recognize as part of perpetual license contracts. For example, effective with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we commenced reporting revenue from our subscription and SaaS as a separate revenue line item, breaking out components that had previously been included in our license revenue and services revenue and prior period amounts were reclassified to conform with this presentation. As a result, the rate of growth in our license revenue, which was previously viewed as a leading indicator of our business performance, as well as our software maintenance revenue and deferred revenue were negatively impacted. At the same time, growth in subscription and SaaS revenue may not appear as robust because such revenue is recognized ratably over time as customers consume our subscription-based products.

• Inclusion of the TFC clauses with respect to term license offerings in certain EAs adds uncertainty to our ability to forecast license revenue in any particular period, could significantly increase our customer deposit liability balance in future periods and could cause results in a given period to materially differ from those in prior periods. If a concentration of customers exercise their rights under these TFC clauses in any given period, our subscription and SaaS revenue, subscription and SaaS annual recurring revenue and cash flow results could be materially negatively impacted.

• The transition from selling support and maintenance with perpetual licenses to selling subscription and SaaS offerings may negatively affect our profitability, as the cost associated with software maintenance renewals is generally lower than the cost associated with selling new subscription and SaaS offerings.

• Term licenses are sold with shorter support and maintenance terms than perpetual licenses are, and customers may not renew such licenses at the end of their term or transition to subscription and SaaS offerings.

• As we offer more services that depend on converting users of free services to premium services and purchasers of our on-premises products to our SaaS offerings, our ability to maintain, improve and predict conversion rates will become more important.

We face intense competition that could adversely affect our operating results.

The application platform, multi-cloud, digital workspace, networking and security product areas are interrelated and rapidly evolving, and we face intense competition across all the markets for our products and services. Many of our current or potential competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, larger customer bases and significantly greater financial, technical, sales, marketing and other resources than we do. Additionally, the adoption of public and distributed cloud, micro-services, containers, and open source technologies have the potential to erode our profitability.

We face competition from, among others:

Providers of public cloud infrastructure and SaaS-based multi-cloud offerings. As businesses increasingly utilize public cloud and SaaS-based offerings, they are building more of their new compute workloads, and may also shift some of their existing workloads, off premises. A significant percentage of new application development is happening in the public cloud, with providers such as Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), Microsoft Azure (“Azure”) or Google Cloud, or in a distributed fashion, and these new applications are often deployed on public cloud or multi-cloud infrastructure. As a result, the demand for on-premises information technology (“IT”) resources is expected to slow, and our products and services will need to increasingly compete for customers’ IT workloads with off-premises public cloud and SaaS-based multi-cloud offerings, such as those offered by Datadog in monitoring and IT telemetry and ServiceNow in the automation space. If we fail to address evolving customer priorities or requirements, the demand for VMware’s products and services may decline, and we could experience slower than expected or no growth. Additionally, VMware Cloud Provider Program (“VCPP”) offerings from our partners may compete directly with infrastructure-as-a-service (“IaaS”) offerings from various public cloud providers, which are increasingly integrated with on-premises solutions. Although we have formed alliances with various public cloud providers to create hybrid and multi-cloud offerings, we continue to face intense competition from these public cloud providers. In fiscal

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2018, we entered into a strategic alliance with AWS to deliver a vSphere-based cloud service, VMware Cloud on AWS, running in AWS data centers available in certain geographies. In fiscal 2019, we extended our collaboration with AWS to include VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to deliver VMware Cloud on AWS as a managed offering in on-premises facilities. In fiscal 2020, we also announced partnerships with Microsoft (Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple), Google (Google Cloud VMware Engine), and Oracle (Oracle Cloud VMware Solution) under the framework of our VCPP that enable customers to run native VMware-based workloads on each of Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud. Our partnerships with AWS and other public cloud providers may be seen as competitive with each other and with other VCPP partners, while some partners may elect to include solutions such as VMware Cloud on AWS as part of their managed services provider offerings. In addition, many of these public cloud providers, including AWS and Microsoft, are delivering hybrid cloud hardware solutions with integrated software, such as distributed cloud management, which may be based on specialized technologies sometimes called SmartNICs (smart network interface cards), data processing units (“DPUs”) or infrastructure processing units (“IPUs”). These specialized technologies can take on an array of compute, storage, security and networking functions, enabling greater cloud efficiency and performance gains, as well as security benefits, namely in the form of CPU hardware isolation, that may undergird hybrid cloud offerings like AWS Outposts. Public cloud infrastructure providers have also developed offerings based on servers using Arm CPUs to reduce energy costs, such as AWS Graviton, announced in 2018. To the extent customers and partners, including service providers, choose to adopt co-processor or non-x86-based models to operate native or hybrid cloud environments, demand for VMware’s on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud products and our operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Providers of application modernization and open source developer platform services. Many public cloud infrastructure and multi-cloud SaaS competitors also offer standalone or embedded application development, or Platform-as-a-Service (“PaaS”), services. With respect to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, PaaS services are often bundled with consumption-based IaaS offerings. These IaaS providers and other developer solution partners, such as Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM, and HashiCorp, offer tools and services based on containers and DevSecOps (development, security and operations) or “shift-left” practices. These providers may offer services, such as application security testing, application performance monitoring and automation, earlier in the application lifecycle or during development, in addition to during production. While VMware offers Tanzu Observability, which directly competes in this space, competitor DevSecOps offerings may reduce the demand for or put pricing pressure on traditional VMware management and automation product offerings, which are often deployed for production use cases. Open source technologies for containerization and cloud platforms, such as Xen, KVM, Docker, rkt, OpenShift, Mesos, Kubernetes and OpenStack, and other open source software-based products, solutions and services may reduce the demand for our solutions, put pricing pressure on our offerings and enable competing vendors to leverage open source technologies to compete directly with us. New platform technologies and standards based on open source software are consistently being developed and can gain popularity quickly. Improvements in open source software could cause customers to replace software purchased from us with open source software. In step with these trends, we deliver a comprehensive container, Kubernetes and Cloud Native Application technologies portfolio with VMware Tanzu and have increased our level of commitment to open source projects and communities, such as the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, that are designed to increase the rate at which customers adopt micro-services architectures. The adoption of distributed micro-service application architectures, and their alignment with container technologies, represents an emerging area of competition. As we continue to invest in these areas, we will experience increasing competitive overlap with other cloud native vendors, such as Red Hat, and the large providers of public cloud infrastructure and developer services. Such competitive pressure or the availability of new open source software may cause us to experience reduced sales, increased pricing pressure, increased sales and marketing expenses and reduced operating margins, any one of which may adversely affect our operating results.

Providers of enterprise security offerings. With our acquisition of Carbon Black Inc. (“Carbon Black”) in 2019, we launched a new set of enterprise security solutions that includes the Carbon Black endpoint security platform and the intrinsic security elements of our existing NSX virtual networking, Workspace ONE end user and our compute offerings. The cybersecurity market is large, highly competitive, fragmented and subject to rapidly evolving technology, shifting customer needs and frequent introductions of new solutions. Competitors in the end point security space range from established solution providers such as Microsoft and Trend Micro to next-generation endpoint security providers such as CrowdStrike and SentinelOne. While we believe that the intrinsic security elements in our existing offerings coupled with our Carbon Black endpoint security offerings and new combined offerings we expect to develop and introduce in the future will enable us to provide an integrated security offering with significant advantages over our competitors’ current offerings, our ability to gain traction and market share as a new entrant into this well-established market segment is uncertain. Additionally, new trends, such as Extended Threat Detection (XDR), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Zero Trust Network Access, represent the coalescence of formerly distinct markets, such as identity management, secure web gateway, SD-WAN, network firewall and cloud access security brokers. These new trends may bring existing partners, such as Fortinet, Zscaler and Okta into a more competitive position with our Carbon Black, VeloCloud and other distributed network security offerings. If we are unable to successfully adapt our product and service offerings to meet these opportunities and rapidly evolving trends our operating results could be adversely affected.

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Large, diversified enterprise software and hardware companies . These competitors supply a wide variety of products and services to, and have well-established relationships with, our current and prospective end users. For example, small- to medium-sized businesses and companies in emerging markets that are evaluating the adoption of virtualization-based technologies and solutions may be inclined to consider Microsoft solutions because of their existing use of Windows and Office products. Some of these competitors have in the past and may in the future take advantage of their existing relationships to engage in business practices that make our products and services less attractive or more expensive to our end users. For example, in 2019, Microsoft modified its on-premises licensing terms to require end users who wish to deploy Microsoft software on certain dedicated hosted cloud services other than Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, including VMware Cloud on AWS, to purchase additional rights from Microsoft. Other competitors have limited or denied support for their applications running in VMware virtualization environments. In addition, these competitors could integrate competitive capabilities into their existing products and services and make them available without additional charge. For example, Oracle provides free server virtualization software intended to support Oracle and non-Oracle applications, Microsoft offers its own server, network and storage virtualization software packaged with its Windows Server product as well as built-in virtualization in the client version of Windows and Cisco includes network virtualization technology in many of its data center networking platforms. As a result, existing and prospective VMware customers may elect to use products that are perceived to be “free” or “very low cost” instead of purchasing VMware products and services for certain applications where they do not believe that more advanced and robust capabilities are required.

Other industry alliances . Many of our competitors have entered into or extended partnerships or other strategic relationships to offer more comprehensive virtualization and cloud computing solutions than they individually had offered. We expect these trends to continue as companies attempt to strengthen or maintain their positions in the evolving virtualization infrastructure and enterprise IT solutions industry. For example, Google Cloud is a member of the CrowdXDR Alliance, a CrowdStrike initiative competitive with VMware security offerings that also includes other VMware partners such as Zscaler. Many public cloud infrastructure providers have also entered into strategic partnerships with mobile telecommunications network providers (such as AWS with Verizon and Microsoft Azure with AT&T) to jointly embed distributed cloud infrastructure and management tools into 5G mobile networks as applications are increasingly deployed closer to end users at the “edge.” These alliances may result in more compelling product and service offerings than those we offer.

Our partners and members of our developer and technology partner ecosystem . We face competition from our partners. For example, third parties currently selling our products and services could build and market their own competing products and services or market competing products and services of other vendors. Additionally, as formerly distinct sectors of enterprise IT, such as software-based virtualization and hardware-based server, networking and storage solutions, converge, we also increasingly compete with companies who are members of our developer and technology partner ecosystem. For example, in 2019, one of our important partners and customers, IBM, acquired Red Hat, one of our competitors in the cloud native applications space. In 2020, Nvidia acquired Mellanox, a SmartNIC provider, and, similarly, in 2022, AMD acquired Xilinx, an field-programmable gate array (“FPGA”) provider, and Pensando, a DPU provider, giving Nvidia and AMD the potential to offer offloaded, FAC-embedded competitive virtualization, storage, security and networking software to enterprise customers for their on-premises environments. In 2022, Intel formed a partnership with Google Cloud to develop public cloud instances using Intel IPUs, and each of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud announced agreements with Ampere, an Arm-based CPU provider. Consequently, when such convergences occur, we may find it more difficult to continue to collaborate productively on other projects with these partners, and the advantages we derive from our ecosystem could diminish.

These various forms of competition could result in increased pricing pressure and sales and marketing expenses, thereby materially reducing our operating margins, and could also prevent our new products and services from gaining market acceptance, thereby harming our ability to increase, or causing us to lose, market share.

Our commercial relationship with Dell could adversely impact our business, stock price, market share and ability to build and maintain other strategic relationships.

Our commercial relationship with Dell is significant and complex. During the time in which we were a majority-owned subsidiary of Dell, the portion of our sales that were realized through the Dell sales channel grew more rapidly than our sales through non-Dell resellers and distributors. As a standalone company following the Spin-Off, we continue to transact a significant amount of business with Dell pursuant to the commercial framework agreement between us and Dell that became effective upon the Spin-Off, which involves various risks such as:

Reliance on our relationship with Dell. During the year ended February 3, 2023, revenue from Dell, including purchases of products and services directly from us, as well as through our channel partners, accounted for 38% of our consolidated revenue, which included revenue from Dell selling joint solutions as an OEM, acting as a distributor to other non-Dell resellers, reselling products and services as a reseller and purchasing products and services for its own internal use. On certain transactions, Dell Financial Services also provides financing to our end users and channel partners at our end users’ and channel partners’

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discretion. Our reliance on the Dell sales channel could negatively impact our ability to negotiate favorable go-to-market arrangements with Dell and our relationships with other channel partners.

Dell’s arrangements with our competitors. Dell maintains significant partnerships with certain of our competitors, including Microsoft, and may enter into more such partnerships in the future. Further, Dell may choose to partner with our competitors instead of with us. These partnerships may adversely impact our relationship with Dell, impede our standalone competitive success and result in declines in our stock price or market share. Additionally, our potential strategic relationships may be negatively affected by our relationship with Dell, as companies may favor or choose to partner with our competitors because of those competitors’ relationship with Dell or due to our relationship with Dell.

Overlaps in areas in which we and Dell compete . We and Dell compete across the IT infrastructure industry providing products and services that overlap in various areas, including software-based storage, management, hyperconverged infrastructure and cloud computing. Dell competes with us in these areas now and may compete with us in new areas and engage in increased competition with us in the future . Some of our products compete directly with products sold or distributed by Dell, which could result in declines in VMware sales. Additionally, this competition could result in increased pricing pressure and sales and marketing expenses, thereby materially reducing our operating margins, and could also prevent our new products and services from gaining market acceptance, thereby harming our ability to increase, or causing us to lose, market share.

Our arrangements with Dell’s competitors. We partner and have arrangements with a number of companies that compete with Dell, including certain of our significant channel, technology and other marketing partners, such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Our relationship with Dell could adversely affect our relationships with these companies or other customers, suppliers and partners. Further, our relationships with these companies could adversely impact our relationship with Dell.

We believe that our commercial relationship with Dell provides us a unique opportunity to leverage the respective technical expertise, product strengths and market presence of Dell for the benefit of our customers and stockholders while enabling us to compete more effectively with our larger competitors. However, such transactions may prove not to be successful and may divert our resources or the attention of our management from other opportunities. Negotiating and implementing these arrangements can be time consuming and cause delays in the introduction of joint product and service offerings and disruptions to VMware’s business. Additionally, cloud and on-premises infrastructure companies may choose not to partner with us to the full extent or at all due to our historical and on-going commercial relationship with Dell. As a result, we may be unable to capitalize, either strategically or commercially, on our new flexibility, and our business, stock price, market share and relationships may suffer.

Our success depends increasingly on customer acceptance of our newer products and services.

Our products and services are primarily based on data center virtualization, application modernization and related multi-cloud technologies used to manage distributed computing architectures, which form the foundation for multi-cloud computing. As the market for server virtualization continues to mature, the rate of growth in license sales of VMware vSphere (“vSphere”) has declined. We are increasingly directing our product development and marketing and sales efforts toward products and services that enable businesses to modernize applications and efficiently implement their multi-cloud services. We have also been introducing SaaS versions of our on-premises products, including vRealize Cloud Universal, and investing in a range of SaaS and cloud-native technologies and products, including through acquisitions such as CloudHealth Technologies, Inc., Carbon Black and Pivotal Software, Inc. (“Pivotal”). These cloud and SaaS initiatives present new and difficult technological, operational and compliance challenges, and significant investments continue to be required to develop or acquire solutions to address those challenges. Our success depends on our current and future customers perceiving technological and operational benefits and cost savings associated with adopting our multi-cloud and application platform solutions. As the market for our data center virtualization products continues to mature, and the scale of our business continues to increase, our rate of revenue growth increasingly depends upon the success of our newer product and service offerings. To the extent that adoption rates for our newer products and services are not sufficient to offset declines in revenue growth for our established server virtualization offerings, our overall revenue growth rates may slow materially or our revenue may decline substantially. Additionally, we may fail to realize returns on our investments in new initiatives and our operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Competition for our highly skilled employees is intense and costly, and our business and growth prospects may suffer if we cannot attract and retain them.

We must continue to attract and retain highly qualified personnel, particularly software and cloud engineers and sales and customer experience personnel, for which competition, particularly against companies with greater resources, startups and emerging growth companies, is intense. Research and development personnel are also aggressively recruited by startup and emerging growth companies, which are especially active in many of the technical areas and geographic regions in which we conduct product and service development. This competition results in increased costs in the form of cash and stock-based compensation and can have a dilutive impact on our stock. We have experienced, and we expect to continue to experience,

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difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications, and, if we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could suffer.

The loss of key management personnel could harm our business.

We depend on the continued services of key management personnel. We generally do not have employment or non-compete agreements with our employees, and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time without penalty and could pursue employment opportunities with any of our competitors. In addition, we do not maintain any key-person life insurance policies. The loss of key management personnel could harm our business.

Our current research and development efforts may not produce significant revenue for several years, if at all.

Developing our products and services is expensive, and developing and launching disruptive technologies requires significant investment often entailing greater risk than incremental investments in existing products and services. Our research and development expenses were approximately 25% of our total revenue during the year ended February 3, 2023. We plan to continue to significantly invest in our research and development efforts to maintain our competitive position. Our investments in research and development may result in products or services that generate less revenue than we anticipate or may not result in marketable products and services for several years or at all.

Acquisitions and divestitures could materially harm our business and operating results.

We have acquired in the past, and may acquire in the future, other businesses, products or technologies. We also sell or divest businesses, products and technologies from time to time. Acquisitions and divestitures involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:

• disruptions to our ongoing operations and diverting management from day-to-day responsibilities due to, for example, the need to provide transition services in connection with a disposition or difficulty integrating the operations, technologies, products, customers and personnel of acquired businesses effectively;

• adverse impacts to our business and financial results resulting from increases to our expenses due to, among other things, integrating business operations and on-boarding personnel and the incurrence of amortization expense related to identifiable intangible assets acquired and other accounting consequences of acquisitions;

• reductions to our cash available for operations, stock repurchase programs and other uses, potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of additional debt;

• uncertainties in achieving the expected benefits of an acquisition or disposition, including with respect to our business strategy, revenue, technology, human resources, cost and operating efficiencies and other synergies, due to, among other things, a lack of experience in new markets, products or technologies; or an initial dependence on unfamiliar distribution partners or vendors;

• unidentified issues or liabilities that were not discovered during the diligence process, including issues with the acquired or divested business’s intellectual property, product quality, security, privacy and accounting practices, regulatory compliance or legal contingencies;

• lawsuits resulting from an acquisition or disposition or that relate to the acquired business;

• maintenance or establishment of acceptable standards, controls, procedures or policies with respect to an acquired business; and

• the need to later divest acquired assets at a loss if an acquisition does not meet our expectations.

Disruptions to our distribution channels, including our various routes to market through Dell, could harm our business.

Our future success is highly dependent on our relationships with channel partners, including distributors, resellers, system vendors and systems integrators, which contribute to a significant portion of our revenue. Recruiting and retaining qualified channel partners and training them in the use of our technology and product offerings requires significant time and resources. Our failure to maintain good relationships with channel partners would likely lead to a loss of end users of our products and services, which would adversely affect our revenue. We generally do not have long-term contracts or minimum purchase commitments with our channel partners, and the contracts that we do have with these channel partners do not prohibit them from offering products or services that compete with ours.

Sales via our various route-to-market relationships with Dell accounted for 38% of our consolidated revenue during the year ended February 3, 2023, and transactions where Dell acted as an OEM accounted for 14% of the revenue from Dell, or 5% of our consolidated revenue. Such routes to market include Dell selling joint solutions as an OEM, acting as a distributor to other non-Dell resellers, reselling products and services as a reseller or purchasing products and services for its own internal use. Although we and Dell entered into a commercial agreement effective upon the Spin-Off that is intended to preserve and

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enhance our strategic partnership, as a standalone company, our relationship with Dell is fundamentally different from the relationship that we had with Dell when we were its majority-owned subsidiary. Following the Spin-Off, Dell no longer consolidates VMware’s revenues, and Dell may not be sufficiently incentivized to drive VMware business through our various route-to-market relationships. If sales through Dell decline and VMware is unable to shift business to suitable alternative channel partners, our business and operating results will be negatively affected. Additionally, any disruption or significant change to our relationship with Dell or the terms upon which they sell and distribute our products and services could have a negative impact on our operating results until such time as we arrange to replace these distribution services with the services of existing or new distributors.

Other than Dell, none of our distributors accounted for 10% or more of our consolidated revenue during the year ended February 3, 2023. Although we believe that we have, or would have in place by the date of any such termination, agreements with replacement distributors sufficient to maintain our revenue from distribution, if we were to lose the distribution services of a significant distributor, such loss could have a negative impact on our operating results until such time as we arrange to replace these distribution services with the services of existing or new distributors.

The evolution of our business requires more complex go-to-market strategies, which involve significant risk.

Our increasing focus on developing and marketing IT management and automation and IaaS offerings (including software-defined networking, VCPP-integrated virtual desktop and mobile device, multi-cloud and SaaS) that enable customers to transform their IT systems requires a greater focus on marketing and selling product suites and more holistic solutions, rather than selling on a product-by-product basis. Consequently, we have developed, and must continue to develop, new strategies for marketing and selling our offerings. In addition, marketing and selling new technologies to enterprises requires us to invest significant time and resources to educate customers on the benefits of our offerings. These investments can be costly and educating our sales force can distract from their efforts to sell existing products and services. Additionally, from time to time, we reorganize our go-to-market teams to increase efficiencies and improve customer coverage, but these reorganizations can cause short-term disruptions that may negatively impact sales over one or more fiscal periods. Further, upon entering into new industry segments, we may choose to go to market with third-party manufactured hardware appliances that are integrated with our software—as we did when we entered into the SD-WAN space through our acquisitions of VeloCloud Networks, Inc. and Nyansa, Inc.—which requires us to rapidly develop, deploy and scale new hardware procurement, supply chain and inventory management processes and product support services and integrate them into our ongoing business systems and controls. Similarly, our launches of managed subscription services, such as VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, required us to implement new methods to deliver and monitor end user services and adjust our model for releasing product upgrades. As our customers increasingly shift from one-time purchases of perpetual software licenses to purchasing our software via more subscription and SaaS-based programs, our go-to-market teams will need to alter their outreach to customers to support ongoing consumption of our offerings, and we will need to appropriately adjust the variable compensation programs we use to incentivize our sales teams. If we fail to successfully adjust, develop and implement effective go-to-market strategies, our financial results may be materially adversely impacted.

We may not be able to respond to rapid technological changes with new solutions and services offerings.

The industries in which we compete are characterized by rapid, complex and disruptive changes in technology, customer demands and industry standards that could make it difficult for us to effectively compete and cause our existing and future software solutions to become obsolete and unmarketable. Our ability to react quickly to new technology trends—such as cloud computing, which is disrupting the ways businesses consume, manage and provide physical IT resources, applications, data and IT services—and customer requirements is negatively impacted by the length of some of our development cycles for new and enhanced products and services, which has frequently been longer than we originally anticipated. This is due in part to the increasing complexity of our product offerings as we increase their interoperability and maintain their compatibility with IT resources, such as public clouds, utilized by our customers while sustaining and enhancing product quality. When we release significant new versions of our existing offerings, the complexity of our products may require existing customers to remove and replace prior versions to take full advantage of substantial new capabilities, which may subdue initial demand for the new versions or depress demand for existing versions until the customer is ready to purchase and install the newest release. If we are unable to evolve our solutions and offerings in time to respond to and remain ahead of new technological developments—in applications, networking or security, for example—or in ways that are compelling to customers, our ability to retain or increase market share and revenue could be materially adversely affected. We may also fail to adequately anticipate the commercialization of emerging technologies, such as blockchain, and the development of new markets and applications for our technology, such as edge computing, and thereby fail to take advantage of new market opportunities or fall behind early movers in those markets.

We operate a global business that exposes us to additional risks.

A significant portion of our employees, customers, channel partners and third-party providers whom we rely upon to help deliver our subscription and SaaS services are located outside the U.S. Our international activities account for a substantial

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portion of our revenue and profits, and our investment portfolio includes investments in non-U.S. financial instruments and holdings in non-U.S. financial institutions. In addition to the risks described elsewhere in these risk factors, our international operations subject us to a variety of risks, including:

• difficulties in delivering support, training and documentation; enforcing contracts; collecting accounts receivable; transferring funds; maintaining appropriate controls relating to revenue recognition practices; and longer payment cycles in certain countries and especially in emerging markets;

• network security and privacy concerns, which could make foreign customers reluctant to purchase products and services from U.S.-based technology companies;

• tariffs, trade barriers and other regulatory or contractual limitations on our ability to develop and sell our products and services in certain non-U.S. geographies, such as in China, whose government has adopted laws and regulations relating to the procurement of key network equipment and security products that might cause our business in such geographies to suffer and expose us to civil and criminal penalties;

• laws and regulations regarding the storage and processing of data in certain non-U.S. geographies, such as in China, might cause our business in such geographies to suffer and expose us to civil and criminal penalties;

• localized impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic or other public health crises that persist or flare up in particular regions, such as in India where several of our global support services as well as research and development personnel are located, have in the past and in the future could cause delays or disruptions in certain of our business operations and product development;

• regional impacts of climate change, which increase the risk of extreme weather events, wildfire and drought that can impact local infrastructure such as the reliability of local electrical grids and telecommunications;

• global economic conditions, including inflation, recession and supply chain disruptions, could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows;

• economic or political instability, military actions or armed conflict, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in locations where we have employees, partners or customers, and uncertainty about or changes in government and trade relationships, policies, and treaties that could adversely affect the ability of U.S.-based companies to conduct business in non-U.S. geographies, such as in the U.K. where Brexit created regulatory uncertainty; and

• legal risks, particularly in emerging markets, relating to compliance with U.S. exchange control requirements and international and U.S. anti-corruption laws and associated exposure to significant fines, penalties and reputational harm.

Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could negatively affect our reputation and materially adversely affect our operating results.

Russia’s military actions in Ukraine have affected and may continue to affect our business.

In response to Russian military actions in Ukraine, we ceased business operations in Russia and suspended business operations in Belarus, including with respect to sales, support on existing contracts and professional services in both countries. Furthermore, the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine include restrictions on selling or importing goods, services or technology in or from affected regions and travel bans and asset freezes impacting connected individuals and political, military, business and financial organizations in Russia. Sanctions imposed on Russia and our suspension of business operations in Russia could impact the fulfillment of existing orders, future revenue streams from impacted customers and the recoverability of certain financial assets. It is not possible to predict the broader consequences of this conflict, which have included and could in the future include further sanctions, embargoes, regional instability, geopolitical shifts and adverse effects on the global economy.

Our success depends on the interoperability of our products and services with those of other companies.

The success of our products depends upon the cooperation of hardware and software vendors to ensure interoperability with our products and offer compatible products and services to end users. In addition, we extend the functionality of various products to work with native public cloud applications, which in some cases requires the cooperation of public cloud vendors. To the extent that hardware, software and public cloud vendors perceive that their products and services compete with ours, they may have an incentive to withhold their cooperation, decline to share access or sell to us their proprietary APIs, protocols or formats, or engage in practices to actively limit the functionality, compatibility and certification of our products. In addition, vendors may fail to certify or support or continue to certify or support our products for their systems. If any of the foregoing occurs, our product development efforts may be delayed or foreclosed and it may be difficult and more costly for us to achieve

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functionality and service levels that would make our services attractive to end users, any of which could negatively impact our business and operating results.

Failure to effectively manage our product and service lifecycles could harm our business.

As part of the natural lifecycle of our products and services, we periodically inform customers that products or services will be reaching their end of life or end of availability and will no longer be supported or receive updates and security patches. To the extent these products or services remain subject to a service contract with the customer, we offer to transition the customer to alternative products or services. Failure to effectively manage our product and service lifecycles could lead to customer dissatisfaction and contractual liabilities, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Financial Risks

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly.

Our operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful, and our past results should not be relied upon as an indication of our future performance. In addition, a significant portion of our quarterly sales typically occurs during the last two weeks of the quarter, which generally reflects customer buying patterns for enterprise technology. As a result, our quarterly operating results are difficult to predict even in the near term. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts or below any guidance we may provide to the market, the price of our Class A common stock (“Common Stock”) would likely decline substantially.

Factors that may contribute to fluctuations in our operating results include, among others, the factors described elsewhere in this Risk Factors section and the following:

• fluctuations in demand, adoption and renewal rates, sales cycles and pricing levels for our products and services;

• variations in customer choices among our on-premises and subscription and SaaS offerings, which can impact our rates of total revenue and license revenue growth;

• the timing of announcements or releases of new or upgraded products and services by us, our partners or competitors;

• the timing of sales orders processing, which can cause fluctuations in our backlog and impact our bookings and timing of revenue recognition;

• our ability to maintain scalable internal systems for reporting, order processing, license fulfillment, product delivery, purchasing, billing and general accounting, among other functions;

• our ability to control costs, including our operating expenses, and the timing and amount of internal use software development costs that may be capitalized;

• the credit risks associated with our distributors, who account for a significant portion of our product revenue and accounts receivable, and our customers;

• the timing and size of realignment plans and restructuring charges;

• seasonal factors such as end of fiscal period expenditures by our customers and the timing of holiday and vacation periods;

• unplanned events that could affect market perception of the quality or cost-effectiveness of our products and solutions; and

• fluctuations in the severity and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions on business activity, which may vary significantly by region.

Adverse economic conditions may harm our business.

Our business success depends in part on worldwide economic conditions. The overall demand for and spend on IT may be viewed by our current and prospective customers as discretionary and, in times of economic uncertainty, customers may delay, decrease, reduce the value and duration, or cancel purchases and upgrades of our products and services. Weak economic conditions or significant uncertainty regarding the stability of financial markets related to stock market volatility, inflation, recession, changes in tariffs, trade agreements or governmental fiscal, monetary and tax policies, among others, have in the past and could in the future adversely impact our business, financial condition and operating results. General and ongoing tightening in the credit market, lower levels of liquidity, increases in rates of default and bankruptcy and significant volatility in equity and fixed-income markets could all negatively impact our customers’ purchasing decisions. Adverse developments that affect financial institutions, transactional counterparties or other third parties, such as bank failures, or concerns or speculation about any similar events or risks, could lead to market-wide liquidity problems, which in turn may cause third parties, including

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customers, to become unable to meet their obligations under various types of financial arrangements as well as general disruptions or instability in the financial markets. Increases in interest rates on credit and debt that would increase the cost of our borrowing could impact our ability to access the capital markets and adversely affect our ability to repay or refinance our outstanding indebtedness, fund future product development and acquisitions or conduct stock buybacks.

For example, the COVID-19 pandemic depressed economic activity worldwide, and the timing and strength of economic recoveries is highly uncertain and likely to vary significantly by region. While the COVID-19 pandemic, including the dangers posed by COVID-19 variants, has not had a material adverse financial impact on our operations to date, we have observed negative impacts on our sales and our financial results from, and there continues to be significant uncertainty regarding, the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, during much of fiscal 2021, we saw delays in customers’ large transformative on-premises projects that we believe were largely due to COVID-19, which negatively impacted our product sales. Accordingly, should the pandemic continue to persist for an extended period of time, economic conditions globally or in particular regions may fail to recover or even worsen, which could cause material adverse impacts to our earnings and other results of operations. More recently, inflation rates in the U.S. have increased to levels not seen in several years, which may result in decreased demand for our products and services, increases in our operating costs, constrained credit and liquidity, reduced government spending and increased volatility in financial markets.

Additionally, trade tensions between the U.S. and its trading partners, like China, have caused and may continue to cause significant volatility in global financial markets. Amidst sustained economic uncertainty, many national and local governments that are current or prospective customers, including the U.S. federal government, may need to make significant changes in their spending priorities, which could reduce the amount of government spending on IT and the potential demand for our products and services from the government sector.

These adverse economic conditions can arise suddenly, have unpredictable impacts and materially adversely affect our future sales and operating results. Further, volatility due to these types of adverse economic conditions in financial and other capital markets, has and may continue to adversely impact our stock price and may in the future impact our ability to access the equity or debt capital markets on attractive terms or at all for a period of time, which could have an adverse effect on our liquidity position.

We have substantial indebtedness, and we may incur other debt in the future, which may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results.

As of February 3, 2023, we had an aggregate of $10.4 billion of outstanding indebtedness. Additionally, we entered into a $1.5 billion unsecured revolving credit facility during the third quarter of fiscal 2022, which is undrawn.

The terms of our indebtedness and revolving credit facility impose restrictions on us, including in specified and customary covenants, our compliance with which may be affected by events beyond our control, including prevailing economic, financial and industry conditions. If we fail to satisfy any of the terms or breach any of the covenants and do not obtain a waiver from the lenders or note holders, then, subject to applicable cure periods, any outstanding indebtedness may be declared immediately due and payable or, with respect to the unsecured notes, we may be required to repurchase our unsecured notes at a price equal to 101% of the aggregate principal plus any accrued and unpaid interest.

We intend to reduce our indebtedness during the next fiscal years. While we believe our remaining cash balances and cash generated by our business operations will be sufficient to fund our operations and enable us to pursue our existing stock repurchase program and strategic plans, if our business operations do not generate the cash flows we expect, then our ability to fund future stock repurchases, invest in our business and pursue strategic alternatives, including business acquisitions, will be reduced, which could reduce our ability to manage dilution of our stock and limit our future growth. If in the future we are unable to generate sufficient operating cash flows to service our debt, we may be required to, among other things, seek additional financing in the debt or equity markets, refinance or restructure all or a portion of our indebtedness, sell selected assets or reduce or delay planned expenditures. Even so, such measures may not be sufficient to enable us to service our debt.

Our current and any future debt may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results by, among other things, increasing our vulnerability to adverse changes in general economic condition, including exposure to interest rate volatility due to our variable rate indebtedness, and industry conditions, necessitating use or dedication of our expected cash flow from operations to service our indebtedness instead of for other purposes, such as capital expenditures and acquisitions, impairing our ability to obtain additional financing for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions or other purposes, and limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, business changes.

In addition, any actual or anticipated changes to our credit ratings, including any announcement that our credit ratings are under review by any rating agency, may:

• negatively impact the value and liquidity of our debt and equity securities;

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• result in an increase in the interest rate payable by us and the cost of borrowing under our revolving credit facility and senior unsecured term loan facility;

• negatively affect the terms of and restrict our ability to obtain financing in the future; and

• upon the occurrence of certain downgrades of the ratings of our unsecured notes, require us to repurchase our unsecured notes at a price equal to 101% of the aggregate principal plus any accrued and unpaid interest.

Refer to “Liquidity and Capital Resources” in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information on our outstanding indebtedness.

We have potential tax liabilities as a result of our former controlling ownership by Dell, which could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Membership in a consolidated tax group. We were included in EMC’s consolidated group for U.S. federal income tax purposes, as well as in certain consolidated, combined or unitary groups that include EMC or certain of its subsidiaries for state and local income tax purposes, from the time of our acquisition by EMC in 2004 through the acquisition of EMC by Dell effective September 7, 2016 (the “Dell Acquisition”), when we became included in Dell’s consolidated tax group. Each member of a consolidated group during any part of a consolidated return year is jointly and severally liable for tax on the consolidated return of such year and for any subsequently determined deficiency thereon. Similarly, in some jurisdictions, each member of a consolidated, combined or unitary group for state, local or foreign income tax purposes is jointly and severally liable for the state, local or foreign income tax liability of each other member of such group. Accordingly, for any period in which we were included in the Dell consolidated group for U.S. federal income tax purposes or any other consolidated, combined or unitary group of Dell and its subsidiaries, we could be liable in the event that any income tax liability was incurred, but not discharged, by any other member of any such group. Additionally, the impact of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “2017 Tax Act”) upon consolidated groups is highly complex and uncertain, and its impact must be further interpreted in the context of various tax-related agreements we have agreed to with EMC and Dell (the “Tax Agreements”) to determine VMware’s related payment. As a result of the Spin-Off, we are no longer a member of Dell’s consolidated tax group, however, we are still subject to potential tax liabilities for the periods prior to the Spin-Off.

Tax Agreements. We have agreed to Tax Agreements that govern, among other things, our potential liabilities for other members of the consolidated tax groups of which we are considered members. Pursuant to the Tax Agreements, we and Dell generally will make payments to each other such that, with respect to tax returns for any taxable period in which we or any of our subsidiaries are included in Dell’s consolidated group for U.S. federal income tax purposes or any other consolidated, combined or unitary group of Dell or its subsidiaries, the amount of taxes to be paid by us will be determined, subject to certain consolidated return adjustments, as if we and each of our subsidiaries included in such consolidated, combined or unitary group filed our own consolidated, combined or unitary tax return. Although the Tax Agreements provide that our tax liability is calculated primarily as though VMware were a separate taxpayer, certain tax attributes and transactions are assessed using consolidated tax return rules as applied to the Dell consolidated tax group and are subject to other specialized terms under the Tax Agreements. In April 2019, we expanded the Tax Agreements by entering into a letter agreement with Dell and EMC that governs our portion of the one-time transition tax imposed by the 2017 Tax Act on accumulated earnings of foreign subsidiaries. Additionally, in December 2019, we amended the Tax Agreements to, subject to certain exceptions, generally limit VMware’s maximum annual tax liability to Dell to the amount VMware would owe on a separate tax return basis. Concurrent with the signing of the Separation and Distribution Agreement in April 2021, we and Dell entered into a new tax matters agreement and terminated a preceding tax sharing agreement. A substantial lack of alignment or disagreement between us and Dell regarding the applicability or interpretation of the Tax Agreements, or any unanticipated material tax liability arising pursuant to the Tax Agreements, could adversely impact our financial condition and operating results.

Pivotal. Prior to the Spin-Off, Pivotal filed a separate tax return for U.S. federal income tax purposes, as it left the Dell consolidated tax group at the time of Pivotal’s initial public offering in April 2018. Pivotal continued to be included on Dell’s unitary state tax returns until the Spin-Off. Pursuant to a tax agreement between Pivotal and Dell, Pivotal may receive or owe payments from or to Dell for tax benefits or expenses that Dell realized due to Pivotal’s inclusion on such returns.

Tracking Stock. Pursuant to the Tax Agreements, if it is subsequently determined that the tracking stock issued in connection with the Dell Acquisition and which Dell subsequently eliminated through a share exchange constitutes a taxable distribution, we could be liable for all or a portion of the tax liability, which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Spin-Off. If the Spin-Off is later determined to not be tax-free for any reason, we could be liable for all or a portion of the tax liability. Additionally, under the Tax Agreements, we are prohibited from taking or failing to take any action that prevents the Spin-Off from being tax-free for U.S. federal income tax purposes. We would be responsible for any taxes imposed on Dell or any of its affiliates as a result of the failure of the Spin-Off to qualify for favorable treatment under the Internal Revenue Code if such failure is attributable to certain actions taken after the Spin-Off by or in respect of us, which could have a material

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adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition. Further, during the two-year period following the Spin-Off, without obtaining the consent of Dell, a private letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) or an unqualified opinion of a nationally recognized law firm, we may be prohibited from taking certain specified actions that could impact the treatment of the Spin-Off, such as significant equity transactions that shift more than a significant portion of the value or total combined voting power of all outstanding shares of our stock. These restrictions may limit our ability to pursue strategic transactions or engage in new business or other transactions that may maximize the value of our business. These obligations may also discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company.

In connection with the Merger Agreement with Broadcom, we provided Dell with an opinion from our counsel, Gibson Dunn, to the effect that the transaction will not result in the Spin-Off failing to qualify as a tax-free transaction under Section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code. Moreover, the Merger Agreement includes a representation by us to Broadcom that such opinion has not been revoked, substantively modified or withdrawn (unless an acceptable replacement opinion has been received), and Broadcom’s obligation to consummate the transaction is conditioned on such representation being true and correct in all respects as of the date of the Merger Agreement and as of the closing of the transaction, as though made on and as of the closing of the transaction. Broadcom may, in its sole discretion, waive the condition relating to the accuracy of this representation. Dell could seek to enjoin the consummation of the transaction if (1) there is a breach of our representation regarding the opinion, (2) Broadcom waives the condition relating to the accuracy of the opinion, and (3) we do not obtain an IRS private letter ruling confirming that the transaction will not cause the Spin-Off to fail to qualify as a tax-free transaction under Section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code. The opinion of counsel is based on, among other things, various assumptions and the accuracy of representations made by us, Broadcom, Dell and certain other persons in connection with the Spin-Off and the execution of the Merger Agreement. If any of these assumptions or representations were, or were to become, inaccurate or incomplete, the opinion may be invalid. No ruling from the IRS is being sought regarding the U.S. federal income tax consequences of the transaction, and an opinion of counsel is not binding on the IRS or any court. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that the IRS will not disagree with or challenge any of the conclusions in the opinion of counsel or that a court will not sustain such a challenge. Regardless of whether the condition in the Merger Agreement relating to the accuracy of our representation regarding the opinion required by the Tax Matters Agreement is satisfied or waived by Broadcom, if the Spin-Off were determined to be taxable as a result of the transaction, Dell, its affiliates and, potentially, its stockholders would incur significant tax liabilities and, under the Tax Agreements, we (following the consummation of the transaction, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadcom) may be required to indemnify Dell and its affiliates for any such tax liabilities, which would be material.

Our operating results may be adversely impacted by exposure to additional tax liabilities and higher than expected tax rates.

We are subject to income taxes as well as non-income-based taxes, such as payroll, sales and property taxes, in many of the jurisdictions in which we operate. Our tax liabilities are dependent on the allocation of revenue and expenses in different jurisdictions and the timing of recognizing revenue and expenses. Significant judgment is required to determine our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities. For example, in the ordinary course of our global business, we execute intercompany transactions, including intellectual property transfers, that require us to make tax estimates because the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.

We are subject to income and indirect tax examinations and are undergoing audits in various jurisdictions. For instance, the IRS has started its examination of fiscal years 2015 through 2019 for the Dell consolidated group, of which VMware was a member beginning in Dell’s fiscal year 2017. As a result of the Spin-Off, VMware is no longer a member of the Dell consolidated group, however, we are still subject to examination by the IRS for the periods in which we were a member of the Dell consolidated group. While we believe we have complied with all applicable income tax laws and made reasonable tax estimates, a governing tax authority could have a different legal interpretation, and a final determination of tax audits or disputes may differ from what is reflected in our historical income tax provisions or benefits and accruals and we may be assessed with additional taxes. Further, the Tax Agreements between us and Dell provide that, when we become subject to federal income tax audits as a member of Dell’s consolidated group, Dell has authority to control the audit and represent Dell and our interests to the IRS. Accordingly, if we and Dell differ on appropriate responses and positions to take with respect to tax questions that may arise in the course of an audit, our ability to affect the outcome of such audits may be impaired.

In addition, regulatory guidance is still forthcoming with respect to the 2017 Tax Act and such guidance may adversely impact our tax provision. Any assessment of additional taxes could materially affect our financial condition and operating results. Further, beginning in fiscal 2023, the 2017 Tax Act eliminates the option to deduct research and development expenditures immediately in the year incurred and requires taxpayers to amortize such expenditures over five years for domestic expenses and fifteen years for certain foreign expenses. Although the U.S. Congress is considering various legislative options that would defer the amortization requirement to later years, we have no assurance that the provision will be repealed or otherwise modified. This provision became effective for us beginning in fiscal 2023 and caused an increase in our taxes in that year. If this provision is not deferred, repealed or modified, our cash taxes may further increase in the future.

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Our future effective tax rate may also be affected by such factors as:

• the expiration of legal statutes of limitation and settlements of audits;

• the impact of accounting for stock-based compensation and for business combinations;

• the recognition of excess tax benefits or deficiencies within the income tax provision or benefit in the period in which they occur;

• the overall levels and proportion of our income before provision for income taxes earned in the U.S. and in jurisdictions with a tax rate lower than the U.S. statutory rate; and

• other developments related to tax laws or their interpretations, in our business or statutory rates, and in our corporate structure.

For example, numerous other countries have also recently enacted or are considering enacting changes to tax laws, administrative interpretations, decisions, policies and positions. In addition, the Organization for Economic, Co-operation and Development (“OECD”), an international association of countries, including the U.S., has made changes and is contemplating additional changes to numerous long-standing tax principles. Further, the Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) was enacted in August 2022 and it will be effective for us commencing with our fiscal 2024. The key tax provisions of the IRA relate to a new 15% corporate alternative minimum tax on adjusted financial statement income for companies with profits greater than $1.0 billion and a 1% excise tax on stock repurchases by publicly traded companies.

These and any other significant developments related to U.S. or international tax laws could materially adversely affect our effective tax rate, the timing and amount of our tax liabilities and payments, our financial condition and operating results.

Security Risks

Cybersecurity breaches of our systems or the systems of our vendors, partners and suppliers could materially harm our business.

Cyber risks represent a large and growing risk to our business, as we depend upon our IT systems, internally developed and proprietary software and services, as well as the software and systems of SaaS providers, to conduct virtually all of our business operations. Some of the factors that contribute to significant cyber risks include:

• We increasingly develop and maintain large data sets and rely on machine learning, artificial intelligence and analytics to provide services to our customers and partners.

• Customers conduct purchase and service transactions online, and we store increasing amounts of customer data and host or manage parts of customers’ businesses in cloud-based IT environments.

• We rely on third parties and their systems for a number of our business functions and to sell our products and services as distributors, resellers, system vendors and systems integrators.

• Hardware, software and applications that we produce or procure from third parties can contain vulnerabilities, such as the Log4J vulnerability reported in December 2021, that have in the past and could in the future interfere with our systems and processes and compromise and introduce vulnerabilities into our products and services.

• Our leadership position in the enterprise security industry, and the widespread use of our services and products in the computing ecosystem, makes us, our employees and contractors and our products a target of threat actors seeking to compromise product security.

• Our large and globally distributed workforce, many of which “work from anywhere,” may increase our exposure to internal threats, social engineering and cyber-attacks.

• Our products, to function as intended, often require heightened permissions within customer environments, and also serve as underlying technology infrastructure for customers’ other systems, making our products more attractive targets for malicious actors, including for example, ransomware attackers such as those engaged in the ESXiArgs campaign exploiting known vulnerabilities in servers running outdated versions of VMware’s ESXi software.

• We are considered an essential supplier in the digital supply chain for the United States government and other entities, including entities operating critical infrastructure, which makes us and our products a target for those seeking to threaten the confidentiality, availability and integrity of critical infrastructure globally.

Cyber-attacks, which are increasing in number and technical sophistication, threaten to misappropriate our proprietary information, cause interruptions of our IT services, introduce or exploit vulnerabilities or introduce malicious files into our IT systems and our products and services for financial gain and unlawful, fraudulent or other malicious purposes, including rendering customers’ core IT infrastructure inoperable. Malicious actors often target company employees and contractors in an

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effort to compromise our IT systems and products using techniques such as email phishing, credential stuffing, password spraying and social engineering, which risk may be heightened as greater numbers of employees and contractors work remotely. Furthermore, geopolitical tensions, such as the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, could increase the risk of retaliatory state-sponsored cyber-attacks to exploit vulnerabilities in VMware systems and products. We may not be able to adequately prepare for or mitigate against such attacks, including, among other reasons, because techniques used in such attacks change frequently. This may cause a delay in our detection and response time, which could in turn exacerbate the scope and impact of the compromise of our and our customers’ systems.

Unauthorized actors (external malicious actors, including nation states and individuals sponsored by them, as well as internal actors bypassing internal controls) have penetrated our network security and our website in the past and may do so in the future. Malicious actors are also actively probing our environments for exploitable vulnerabilities, including in open-source components we utilize, and will likely continue doing so in the future. We are increasingly targeted by malicious actors who seek to extort or steal funds from companies and employees. Significant and increasing investments of time, resources and management and Board attention have been, and will continue to be, required to anticipate and address cybersecurity risks and incidents. Accordingly, if our cybersecurity risk management program and those of our contractors, partners and vendors is not effective in protecting against, containing or recovering from breaches, internal threats or other incidents, our ability to conduct our business could be damaged in a number of ways, including:

• Commercially and competitively sensitive business information, such as our intellectual property and other proprietary data, could be stolen, exposed or misused;

• our IT systems could be disrupted, and our ability to conduct our business operations could be severely impeded until they are restored and secured;

• our supply chain may be compromised, which may in turn impact the confidentiality, availability and integrity of our internal or customer-facing systems and products;

• our ability to process and electronically deliver customer orders could be degraded, and our distribution channels could be disrupted, resulting in delays in revenue recognition; and

• personal information or data of our customers, employees and business partners could be compromised, misused or lost.

Should any of the above events occur, or are perceived to have occurred, we could be subject to significant claims for damages or injunctive relief from our customers, partners, vendors, or employees (among others); we could face costly and time-intensive investigations, inquiries or actions by regulators or government policymakers, and sanctions, penalties or injunctive demands from governmental agencies under privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, incident notification, or other laws and regulations; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights could be compromised; our ability to attract and retain customers could be negatively impacted; our reputation and competitive position could be materially harmed; we could face material losses as the result of successful financial cyber-fraud schemes; and we could incur significant costs in order to upgrade our cybersecurity systems, remediate damages and defend the Company in any legal, regulatory, legislative or administrative proceedings. Consequently, our business, financial condition and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Our products and services are highly technical and may contain, or be subject to our own or suppliers’, errors, defects or security vulnerabilities.

Our products and services are highly technical and complex and, when deployed, contain errors, defects or security vulnerabilities, some of which may not be discovered before or after a product or service has been released, installed and used by customers. The complexity and breadth of our technical and production environment, which involves multiple and dispersed product and engineering teams in different countries, including China, working on different product initiatives, increases the risk that vulnerabilities or defects are introduced into our products and services and may delay our ability to detect, mitigate or remediate such vulnerabilities. The need to coordinate with multiple parties in the supply chain when vulnerabilities are detected can also delay mitigation or remediation, thereby increasing risks to customers. Our internal logging, alerting, and cyber incident detection mechanisms may not cover every system potentially targeted by threat actors, may not have the capability to detect certain types of unauthorized activities, and may not capture and surface information sufficient to enable us to detect and take responsive action. In addition, our internal access control policies, mechanisms and training, including around credentials security and management, may not be effective in eradicating in all instances previously identified or known risks, particularly in scenarios where our credentials and related policies have been exposed or obtained externally. Employees or contractors have also bypassed our access control mechanisms and introduced vulnerabilities in, and enabled the exploitation of, our IT environments, our software products (and correspondingly our customers’ environments), and our subscription and SaaS offerings in the past and may do so in the future.

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Security vulnerabilities in our IT environments, software products or customer environments, installation errors or misuse can also lead to increased cybersecurity risks for customers and partners, including unintended access to or exploitation of our products, which risks are exacerbated if customers fail to timely implement (or to implement at all) security recommendations and software updates that we and other IT vendors issue from time to time when significant issues have been identified. Undiscovered or unresolved vulnerabilities in our products or services could expose our customers to hackers, threat actors or other unscrupulous third parties who develop and deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs that could attack customers using our products or services. Further, our use of open-source software in our offerings can make our products and services vulnerable to additional security risks not posed by proprietary products.

In the past, VMware has been made aware of public postings by hackers of portions of our proprietary source code. It is possible that the released source code could expose unknown security vulnerabilities in our products and services that could be exploited by hackers or others. In addition, public exposure, or exploitation of vulnerabilities in our products by threat actors, could result in reputational damage and lost customers and could negatively affect our operating results and those of our customers.

VMware products and services are also subject to known and unknown security vulnerabilities resulting from integration with products or services of other companies (such as applications, operating systems or semiconductors).

Actual or perceived errors, defects or security vulnerabilities in our products or services could harm our reputation, result in litigation or regulatory actions or lead some customers to return products or services or cancel subscriptions, reduce or delay future purchases or use competitive products or services, any of which could materially negatively impact our business, operating results and stock price.

Problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and could adversely impact our operations.

We rely on our information systems and those of third parties for fulfilling contractual obligations, including processing customer orders, delivering products and providing services, performing accounting operations, supporting our employees, managing employee data and otherwise running our business. If our systems fail, our disaster and data recovery planning and capacity may prove insufficient to enable timely recovery of important functions and business records. Additionally, our information systems may not efficiently support new business models and initiatives, and significant investments could be required in order to upgrade existing or implement new systems. Business requirements may require additional capabilities including implementation of a new information system. In particular, our systems and operations were built to support a perpetual software licensing model, and significant enhancements are required to support our transition to subscription and SaaS products and services. Further, we continuously work to enhance our information systems, such as our enterprise resource planning software, and the implementation of such enhancements is frequently disruptive to the underlying enterprise, which may especially be the case for us due to the size and complexity of our business, and may disrupt internal controls and business processes that could introduce unintended vulnerability to error. Any such disruption to our information systems and those of the third parties upon whom we rely could have a material impact on our business.

Legal and Compliance Risks

We are involved in litigation, investigations and regulatory inquiries and proceedings that could negatively affect us.

As described in Note D to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we are, and may become, involved in various legal and regulatory proceedings, and investigations relating to our business, including with respect to antitrust and competition, breach of contract, class action, commercial, corporate governance, cybersecurity, employment, intellectual property, privacy, securities, and whistleblower matters. Matters such as these may impact our business in different ways. Intellectual property infringement claims, for example, may seek injunctive relief or other court orders that could prevent us from offering our products. As a result, we might be required to seek a license for the use of such intellectual property, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or we may be required to develop non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense and may ultimately not be successful. Because we generally indemnify our customers and partners from intellectual property infringement claims in connection with the use of our products, we may be called on to defend these customers and partners in litigation. In addition, we have already been, and may continue to be, subject to demands, claims and lawsuits arising out of Broadcom’s proposed acquisition of VMware. We may also be subject to demands, claims, lawsuits, regulatory investigations and Congressional inquiries relating to cybersecurity incidents. From time to time, we also receive inquiries from and have discussions with government entities regarding our compliance with laws and regulations. Such litigation, investigations, regulatory inquiries, and proceedings can be unpredictable and time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources, cause us to incur significant expenses, and could result in ancillary consequences that limit our ability to avail ourselves of certain legal benefits or protections for periods of time. For example, as a result of our settlement with the SEC in September 2022, we no longer qualify for well-known seasoned issuer status, we are ineligible for certain private offering exemptions under the Securities Act that would otherwise make our public offerings of debt more efficient and we are unable to rely on protection of the safe harbor provisions of the

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U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 again until September 2025. Allegations made in connection with these matters may harm our reputation, regardless of their merit and could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, cash flows or results of operations if decided adversely to or settled by us.

We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property 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. As such, despite our efforts, the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be adequate to prevent 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 U.S. In addition, we rely on confidentiality and 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 “click-wrap” and “shrink-wrap” licenses in some instances.

Detecting and protecting against the unauthorized use of our products, technology proprietary rights and intellectual property rights is expensive, difficult, uncertain and, in some cases, impossible. Litigation is necessary from time to time 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. 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.

Actual or perceived non-compliance with privacy and data protection laws, regulations and standards could adversely impact our business.

Our business is subject to laws and regulations by various federal, state and international legislative and governmental agencies responsible for legislating, monitoring and enforcing privacy and data protection laws (“Data Privacy Laws”). The regulatory framework regarding the collection, protection, use, transfer and disclosure of personal information is rapidly evolving, and Data Privacy Laws are subject to new and changing interpretations and amendments, creating uncertainty and additional legal obligations for ourselves, our partners, vendors and customers. We expect that there will continue to be newly proposed or changes to interpretations of existing Data Privacy Laws and industry standards, including self-regulatory standards advocated by industry groups, in various jurisdictions globally, and we may not be able to appropriately anticipate or timely respond to the impacts such and similar developments may have on our business or the businesses of our partners, vendors and customers.

We continue to regularly enhance our policies and controls across our business relating to how we and our business partners collect, protect and use customer and employee personal information. Ongoing changes to the regulatory landscape will likely increase the cost and complexity of our business relationships, internal operations and the delivery of our products and services. In addition, this may affect our ability to run promotions and effectively market our offerings and could subsequently impact the demand for our products and services.

Any actual or perceived failure by us or our business partners to comply with Data Privacy Laws, the privacy commitments contained in our contracts, or the privacy notices we have posted on our website could subject us to investigations, sanctions, enforcement actions, negative financial consequences, civil and criminal liability or injunctions. For example, failure to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation requirements may lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4% of the annual global revenues of the infringer, whichever is greater. Additionally, as a technology provider, our customers expect us to demonstrate compliance with current Data Privacy Laws and further make contractual commitments and implement processes to enable the customer to comply with their own obligations under Data Privacy Laws, and our actual or perceived inability to do so may adversely impact sales of our products and services, particularly to customers in highly regulated industries. As a result, our reputation and brand may be harmed, we could incur significant costs, and our financial and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Our use of “open source” software in our products could negatively affect our ability to sell our products and subject us to litigation.

Many of our products and services incorporate so-called “open source” software, and we may incorporate open source software into other products and services in the future. Open source software is generally licensed by its authors or other third parties under open source licenses. Open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or assurance of title or controls on origin of the software, which exposes us to potential liability if the software fails to work or infringes the intellectual property of a third party.

We monitor our use of open source software in an effort to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend and avoid exposing us to unacceptable financial risk. However, the processes we follow to monitor our use of open source software could fail to achieve their intended result. In addition, although we believe that we have complied with our obligations

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under the various applicable licenses for open source software that we use, there is little or no legal precedent governing the interpretation of terms in most of these licenses, which increases the risk that a court could interpret the licenses differently than we do.

From time to time, we receive inquiries or claims from authors or distributors of open source software included in our products regarding our compliance with the conditions of one or more open source licenses. An adverse outcome to a claim could require us to:

• pay significant damages;

• stop distributing our products that contain the open source software;

• revise or modify our product code to remove alleged infringing code;

• release the source code of our proprietary software; or

• take other steps to avoid or remedy an alleged infringement.

We have faced and successfully defended against allegations of copyright infringement and failing to comply with the terms of an open source license, but we can provide no assurances that we will not face similar lawsuits with respect to our use of open source software in the future, nor what the outcome of any such lawsuits may be.

If we fail to comply with government contracting regulations, our business could be adversely affected.

Our contracts with federal, state, local and non-U.S. governmental customers and our arrangements with distributors and resellers who may sell directly to governmental customers are subject to various procurement regulations, contract provisions and other requirements relating to their formation, administration and performance. Any failure by us to comply with government contracting regulations (such as cybersecurity- and COVID-19-related requirements) could result in the imposition of various civil and criminal penalties, which may include termination of contracts, forfeiture of profits, suspension of payments, fines and suspension from future government contracting, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition. Further, any negative publicity related to our government contracts or any proceedings surrounding them, regardless of accuracy, may damage our business and affect our ability to compete for new contracts.

Some of our directors have potential conflicts of interest with Dell.

The Chairman of our Board of Directors, Michael Dell, is also chairman and chief executive officer of Dell and is a significant stockholder of Dell, and one of our directors, Egon Durban, serves on the Dell board of directors and as managing partner of Silver Lake Partners, a significant stockholder of Dell. Ownership of Dell common stock by our directors and the presence of executive officers or directors of Dell on our board of directors could create, or appear to create, conflicts of interest with respect to matters involving both us and Dell that could have different implications for Dell than they do for us. Our Board has approved resolutions that address corporate opportunities that are presented to Messrs. Dell and Durban. These provisions may not adequately address potential conflicts of interest or ensure that potential conflicts of interest will be resolved in our favor. As a result, we may not be able to take advantage of corporate opportunities presented to individuals who are directors of both us and Dell and we may be precluded from pursuing certain growth initiatives.

Risks Related to Owning Our Common Stock

The MSD Stockholders and the SLP Stockholders have significant influence over us, and their interests may conflict with our interests and the interests of our other stockholders.

As a result of the Spin-Off, the entities affiliated with Michael Dell (“MSD Stockholders”) and the entities affiliated with Silver Lake Partners (“SLP Stockholders”) became direct beneficial holders of VMware with interests representing 39.5% and 9.8%, respectively, of our outstanding stock, based on the number of shares outstanding as of March 21, 2023. As a result, the MSD Stockholders and the SLP Stockholders have significant influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or our assets. The interests of the MSD Stockholders or the SLP Stockholders could conflict with or differ from our interests or the interests of our other stockholders. For example, the concentration of voting power held by the MSD Stockholders and SLP Stockholders could delay, defer or prevent a change of control of us or impede a merger, takeover or other business combination which we or others of our stockholders may view favorably. Effective upon the consummation of the Spin-Off, we entered into a stockholders agreement pursuant to which the MSD Stockholders have the right to nominate up to two members of our Board and the SLP Stockholders have the right to nominate one member of our Board, subject to maintaining certain ownership thresholds. Michael Dell, the Chairman of our Board, is the first MSD Stockholders nominee; the MSD Stockholders have the right to nominate a second member of the Board. Egon Durban is the SLP Stockholders’ nominee. This concentrated control may negatively impact other stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and may also adversely affect our stock price. The MSD Stockholders and SLP Stockholders collectively beneficially own 65.5% of Dell’s outstanding stock as of

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March 21, 2023. Accordingly, their interests may not be aligned with other VMware stockholders with respect to actions involving or impacting Dell.

The price of our Common Stock has fluctuated significantly in recent years and may fluctuate significantly in the future.

The trading price of our Common Stock has fluctuated significantly in the past and could fluctuate substantially in the future, and stockholders’ investments in our stock could lose some or all of their value. The stock market in general and technology companies in particular have often experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations. Neither the MSD Stockholders nor the SLP Stockholders are restricted from selling their respective shares, and each is entitled to certain registration rights. If a significant number of these shares enters the public trading markets in a short period of time, the market price of our Common Stock may decline. Broad market and industry factors may also decrease the market price of our Common Stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. Additionally, fluctuations and declines in our stock price have been, and in the future may be, due to, among other reasons, the factors discussed in this Risk Factors section and elsewhere in this report, as well as:

• perceived progress, or lack thereof, in the satisfaction of conditions precedent to and speculation regarding the timing of the consummation of our acquisition by Broadcom;

• our ability to meet or exceed the forward-looking guidance we have given, to give forward-looking guidance consistent with past practice and any changes to or withdrawal of previous guidance or long-range targets;

• trading activity by directors, executive officers, significant stockholders or a limited number of stockholders who together beneficially own a significant portion of our outstanding common stock, or the market’s perception that such holders intend to sell;

• the inclusion or exclusion of our stock from any trading indices, such as the S&P 500 Index;

• speculation in the press and on social media; and

• changes in recommendations regarding our stock or more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors by the industry or securities analysts who cover and publish about us, our business, our competitors, or the markets in which we compete.

In addition to direct value lost, volatility or declines in our stock price may adversely affect our ability to retain key employees, most of whom are compensated, in part, based on the performance of our stock price. In the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted, including against us, and, if not resolved swiftly, can result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources.

Anti-takeover provisions in Delaware law and our charter documents could discourage takeover attempts.

Certain provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. These provisions include the following:

• the division of our board of directors into three classes, with each class serving for a staggered three-year term, which prevents stockholders from electing an entirely new board of directors at any annual meeting;

• that any director may only be removed for cause and only by the affirmative vote of holders of at least a majority of the votes entitled to be cast to elect any such director;

• the right of the board of directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the board of directors;

• the prohibition of cumulative voting in the election of directors or any other matters, which would otherwise allow less than a majority of stockholders to elect director candidates;

• the requirement for advance notice for nominations for election to the board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting;

• the ability of the board of directors to issue, without stockholder approval, up to 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock with terms set by the board of directors, which rights could be senior to those of common stock; and

• stockholders may not act by written consent and may not call special meetings of the stockholders.

In addition, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company and could reduce the price that investors may be willing to pay for shares of our common stock. Section 203 imposes certain restrictions on merger, business combinations and other transactions between us and large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock.

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Our bylaws provide for an exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.

Our bylaws include a provision providing that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law:

• any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf;

• any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by, or other wrongdoing by, any of our directors, officers, employees or stockholders to us or to our stockholders;

• any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law or as to which the Delaware General Corporation Law confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware; or

• any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine.

This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”). Furthermore, Section 22 of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”) creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions.

While the Delaware courts have determined that exclusive forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than the one we have designated. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provision of our bylaws, which may require significant expenditures of resources, and, ultimately, there can be no assurance that the provisions would be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions. This exclusive forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees and may discourage these types of lawsuits. If a court were to find the exclusive forum provision contained in our bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs to resolve such action in other jurisdictions.

General Risks

We are exposed to foreign exchange risks.

We conduct a meaningful portion of our business in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, but report our operating results in U.S. dollars. Accordingly, our operating results are subject to fluctuations in currency exchange rates. The realized gain or loss on foreign currency transactions is dependent upon the types of foreign currency transactions into which we enter, the exchange rates associated with these transactions and changes in those rates, the net realized gain or loss on our foreign currency forward contracts, among other factors. Although we hedge a portion of our foreign currency exposure, significant fluctuations in exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies have adversely affected, and may adversely affect in the future, our operating results. For example, the economic uncertainty introduced by Brexit resulted in significant volatility in the value of the British pound and other currencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made in the past and may in the future make it more difficult for us to accurately forecast future transactions in foreign currencies and cause us to have to modify hedging positions, thereby adversely impacting the efficacy of our foreign currency hedging strategy and our operating results. Any future weakening of foreign currency exchange rates against the U.S. dollar would likely result in additional adverse impacts on our revenue.

If our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to earnings.

We may not realize all the economic benefit from our business acquisitions, which could result in an impairment of goodwill or intangibles. As of February 3, 2023, goodwill and amortizable intangible assets were $9.6 billion and $478 million, respectively. We review our goodwill and amortizable intangible assets for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable. We test goodwill for impairment at least annually. Factors that may lead to impairment include a substantial decline in stock price and market capitalization or cash flows, reduced future cash flow estimates related to the assets and slower growth rates in our industry. We may be required to record a significant charge in our financial statements during the period in which any impairment of our goodwill or amortizable intangible assets is determined, which would negatively impact our operating results.

Changes in accounting principles and guidance could result in unfavorable accounting charges or effects.

We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. These principles are subject to interpretation by the SEC and various bodies formed to create and interpret appropriate accounting principles and guidance. A change in these principles or guidance, or in their interpretations, may have a material

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effect on our reported results, as well as our processes and related controls, and may retroactively affect previously reported results.

Natural disasters, catastrophic events or geo-political conditions could disrupt our business.

A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, flood or other act of God, catastrophic event or pandemic, abrupt political change, terrorist activity and armed conflict, and any similar disruption, as well as any derivative disruption, such as those to services provided through localized physical infrastructure, including utility or telecommunication outages, or any to the continuity of our, our partners’ and our customers’ workforce, could have a material adverse impact on our business and operating results. Our worldwide operations are dependent on our network infrastructure, internal technology systems and website, as well as our intellectual property and personnel, significant portions of which, including our corporate headquarters, are located in California, a region known for seismic activity, fires and floods. Disruption to these dependencies may negatively impact our ability to respond to customer requests, process orders, provide services and maintain local and global business continuity. Delays or cancellations of customer orders or the deployment or availability of our products and services, for example, could materially impact our revenue. Furthermore, some of our newer product initiatives, offerings and business functions are hosted or carried out by third parties that may be vulnerable to these same types of disruptions, the response to or resolution of which may be beyond our control. Additionally, any such disruption could cause us to incur significant costs to repair damages to our facilities, equipment, infrastructure and business relationships.

Climate change may have a long-term negative impact on our business.

Risks related to rapid climate change, such as extreme weather conditions, sea-level rise, drought, flooding and wildfires, may have an increasingly adverse impact on our business and those of our customers, partners and vendors in the longer term. While we seek to mitigate the business risks associated with climate change for our operations, there are inherent climate-related risks wherever business is conducted. Access to clean water and reliable energy in the communities where we conduct our business, whether for our offices, data centers, vendors, customers or other stakeholders, is a priority. Any of our primary locations may be vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and the impacts of extreme weather events, which have caused regional short-term systemic failures in the U.S. and elsewhere. For example, our California headquarters are projected to be vulnerable to future water scarcity due to climate change, and unanticipated extreme cold weather has resulted in electrical grid outages in Texas where many of our U.S. employees are located. While this danger currently has a low-assessed risk of disrupting normal business operations in the near term, it has the potential to impact employees’ abilities to commute to work or to work from home and stay connected effectively. Climate-related events, including the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, their impact on critical infrastructure in the U.S. and internationally and their potential to increase political instability in regions where we, our customers, partners and our vendors do business, have the potential to disrupt our business, our third-party suppliers, or the business of our customers and partners, and may cause us to experience higher attrition and additional costs to maintain or resume operations. Climate change and environmental regulations may result in changes in the supply, demand or available sources of energy or other resources that could adversely impact the availability or cost of goods and services, including natural resources necessary to run our business. Additionally, changes in climate in the locations where we operate may increase the costs of powering and cooling the computer hardware we use to develop software and deliver our subscription and SaaS-based offerings as well as the costs of carbon offsets that we may procure from time to time as we pursue our net zero carbon objectives.

Social and ethical issues, including our ability to make progress on our ESG goals and commitments, may result in reputational harm and liability.

In December 2020, we announced our 2030 Agenda, which represents our ESG strategy to drive outcomes of sustainability, equity and trust. Our public commitments include promoting environmental sustainability and decarbonization; human capital development and diversity, equity and inclusion; and cybersecurity, privacy, digital ethics and transparent business practices. Each of these are areas of increasing scrutiny from the investment community, customers, employees, partners, suppliers and communities who expect us to report transparently on our progress. In order to meet expectations from our stakeholders, we are working to align our reporting with emerging disclosure and accounting standards such as the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”) and the Global Reporting Initiative (“GRI”) as well as potential new disclosure requirements from regulators such as the SEC while we also seek to report timely on progress toward our 2030 Agenda objectives. In order to do so, we are continuing to develop internal operational, information and data assurance systems that will enable us to accurately report on these matters on a timely basis. If we fail to report accurately or on a timely basis or fail to anticipate reporting requirements and expectations in this emerging area, our reputation may be adversely affected, and we could be exposed to increased risk of litigation. Additionally, if we are perceived as failing to make or accurately report on our progress on our ESG goals or to follow through on our commitments, our brand and our reputation may be harmed, we may be exposed to increased risk of litigation, our ability to attract and retain employees may be damaged and our financial performance and stock price may be adversely affected.

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ITEM 7.    MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following management’s discussion and analysis is provided in addition to the accompanying consolidated financial statements and notes to assist in understanding our results of operations and financial condition.

Our fiscal year is the 52 or 53 weeks ending on the Friday nearest to January 31 of each year. We refer to our fiscal year ending February 2, 2024, and fiscal years ended February 3, 2023, January 28, 2022 and January 29, 2021 as “fiscal 2024,” “fiscal 2023,” “fiscal 2022” and “fiscal 2021,” respectively. Fiscal 2023 was a 53-week fiscal year, while fiscal 2024, fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021 are each 52-week fiscal years.

Period-over-period changes are calculated based upon the respective underlying non-rounded data. Unless the context requires otherwise, we are referring to VMware, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries when we use the terms “VMware,” the “Company,” “we,” “our” or “us.”

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Discussion regarding our financial condition, results of operations and income tax provision for fiscal 2022 as compared to fiscal 2021 that are not included in this Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 28, 2022, filed with the SEC on March 24, 2022.

Overview

We originally pioneered the development and application of virtualization technologies with x86 server-based computing, separating application software from the underlying hardware, and then evolved to become the private cloud and mobility management leader. Building upon that leadership, we are focused on becoming the multi-cloud leader. Information technology (“IT”) driven innovation continues to disrupt markets and industries. Technologies emerge faster than organizations can absorb, creating increasingly complex environments. Organizations’ IT departments and corporate divisions are working at an accelerated pace to harness new technologies, platforms and cloud models, ultimately guiding businesses and their product teams through a digital transformation. To take on these challenges, we are helping customers drive their multi-cloud strategy by providing the multi-cloud platform for all applications, enabling digital innovation and enterprise control.

Our portfolio supports and addresses our customers’ key priorities, including modernizing their applications, managing multi-cloud environments, accelerating their cloud journey, modernizing the network using commodity hardware, embracing zero-trust security and empowering anywhere workspaces. We enable digital transformation of customers’ applications, infrastructure and operations for their constantly evolving business and employee needs.

End users can purchase the full breadth of our subscription, software-as-a-service (“SaaS”), license and services portfolio through discrete purchases or through enterprise agreements (“EAs”). EAs are sold to our direct customers and through channel partners and can include our license, multi-year maintenance and support, subscription and SaaS offerings.

During fiscal 2023, we continued to see an increase in the portion of our sales occurring through our subscription and SaaS offerings compared to the portion of our on-premises solutions sold as perpetual licenses. We expect this trend to continue, and as a result, a greater portion of our revenue will be recognized over time as subscription and SaaS revenue rather than license revenue, which is typically recognized in the fiscal period in which sales occur. As this trend continues, the rate of growth in our license revenue, which has historically been viewed as a leading indicator of our business performance, has and will likely continue to be less relevant on a standalone basis, and we believe that the overall growth rate of our combined license and subscription and SaaS revenue and annual recurring revenue for subscription and SaaS, as well as the growth of our remaining performance obligations, will become better indicators of our future growth prospects. In addition, our operating margin was negatively impacted in fiscal 2023 as a result of our incremental investment in our subscription and SaaS portfolio. We expect this trend to continue in fiscal 2024 as we continue our transition to subscription and SaaS.

Broadcom Merger Agreement

On May 26, 2022, we entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”) with Broadcom Inc. (“Broadcom”). Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, each share of our Class A common stock (“Common Stock”), par value $0.01 per share, issued and outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the transaction will be indirectly converted into the right to receive, at the election of the holder of such share of Common Stock, and subject to proration in accordance with the Merger Agreement as described below: (i) $142.50 per share in cash, without interest (the “Cash Consideration”), or (ii) 0.25200 (the “Exchange Ratio”) shares of common stock, par value $0.001 per share, of Broadcom (“Broadcom Common Stock”, and such consideration, the “Stock Consideration”). The stockholder election will be subject to a proration mechanism, such that the total number of shares of Common Stock entitled to receive the Cash Consideration, and the total number of shares of Common Stock entitled to receive the Stock Consideration, will, in each case, be equal to 50% of the aggregate number of shares of Common Stock issued and outstanding immediately prior to the consummation of the transaction. Holders of Common Stock that do not make an election will be treated as having elected to receive the Cash Consideration or the Stock Consideration in accordance with the proration methodology in the Merger Agreement.

The transaction, which is expected to be consummated in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023, was approved by our shareholders at a special meeting held on November 4, 2022 but remains subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. On February 17, 2023, in accordance with the Merger Agreement, we and Broadcom each delivered to the other a mutual notice to extend the Outside Date (as defined in the Merger Agreement) to May 26, 2023. If the Closing Effective Date (as defined in the Merger Agreement) has not occurred, similar three-month extensions could be noticed by either party (or mutually) five business days prior to each of May 26 and August 26, 2023. If the transaction is consummated, the Common Stock will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and deregistered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

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Business Operations in Russia

In response to Russian military actions in Ukraine, we suspended sales and services in Russia and Belarus, including support on existing contracts and professional services in the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Furthermore, the United States (“U.S.”) and other countries have imposed sanctions on Russia that have impacted our future revenue streams from affected customers. During the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we ceased our business operations in Russia entirely.

The impact of these events on our consolidated financial statements during fiscal 2023 was not material as a percentage of total consolidated revenue, and we do not expect the impact to be material in future periods. We do not expect the cessation of business operations will have an impact on our existing contracts with customers in Russia and Belarus if U.S. and international restrictions and sanctions are lifted. We continue to closely monitor the ongoing situation in Russia and Belarus.

Results of Operations

Approximately 70% of our sales are denominated in the U.S. dollar. In certain countries, however, we also invoice and collect in various foreign currencies, principally euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar and Chinese renminbi. In addition, we incur and pay operating expenses in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. As a result, our financial statements, including our revenue, operating expenses, unearned revenue and the resulting cash flows derived from the U.S. dollar equivalent of foreign currency transactions, are affected by foreign exchange fluctuations.

Revenue

Our revenue during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Revenue:

License

Subscription and SaaS

Total license and subscription and SaaS

Services:

Software maintenance

Professional services

Total services

Total revenue

Revenue:

United States

International

Total revenue

Revenue from our subscription offerings consisted primarily of our VMware Cloud Provider Program cloud-based offerings that are billed to customers on a consumption basis and revenue from VMware Tanzu and other offerings that are billed on a subscription basis. Revenue from our SaaS offerings consisted primarily of our Workspace ONE, VMware Carbon Black Cloud, VMware Aria and VMware Cloud on AWS.

License revenue relating to the sale of on-premises licenses that are part of a multi-year contract is generally recognized upon delivery of the underlying license, whereas revenue derived from our subscription and SaaS offerings is generally recognized over time as customers consume the services or ratably over the term of the subscription, commencing upon provisioning of the service.

As customers adopt our subscription and SaaS offerings, license and software maintenance revenue has been, and may continue to be, lower and subject to greater fluctuation in the future, driven by a higher proportion of our sales occurring through our subscription and SaaS offerings as well as the variability of large deals between fiscal quarters, which deals historically have had a large license revenue impact.

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Furthermore, during the second half of fiscal 2023, we introduced termination for convenience (“TFC”) clauses with respect to term-based license offerings in certain EAs. Revenue from such term-based license offerings subject to TFC clauses is recognized ratably as subscription and SaaS revenue, rather than as license revenue, due to the requirement to refund any unused, pre-paid fees upon termination. Any concentration of such sales in any given future period could have a material negative impact on our license revenue in such future periods.

License Revenue

License revenue decreased during fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, largely due to increased sales occurring through our subscription and SaaS offerings compared to the portion of our on-premises solutions sold as perpetual licenses, as we continue to transition our portfolio from a perpetual license model to subscription and SaaS offerings.

Subscription and SaaS Revenue

Subscription and SaaS revenue increased during fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, primarily due to increased sales of our VMware Aria, Workspace ONE, VMware Cloud on AWS and other major hyperscalers, and VMware Tanzu offerings.

Annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) represents the annualized value of our committed customer subscription and SaaS contracts as of the end of the reporting period, assuming any contract that expires during the next 12 months is renewed on its existing terms and any applicable TFC rights are not exercised, except that, for consumption-based subscription and SaaS offerings, ARR represents the annualized quarterly revenue based on revenue recognized for the current reporting period. ARR is an operating measure we use to assess the strength of our subscription and SaaS offerings. ARR is a performance metric and should be viewed independently of, and not as a substitute for or combined with, revenue and unearned revenue. ARR was $4.7 billion as of February 3, 2023 and $3.6 billion as of January 28, 2022.

Services Revenue

Software maintenance revenue decreased during fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, largely due to the continued shift in demand from our on-premises licenses sold with the associated software maintenance to cloud-based solutions. In each period presented, customers purchased, on a weighted-average basis, greater than three years of support and maintenance with each new license purchased.

Professional services revenue increased during fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. Services we provide through our consultants and technical account managers, and our continued focus on solution deployments, including our networking, security, cloud management and anywhere workspace offerings, contributed to the increase in professional services revenue. Our professional services revenue may vary, as we continue to enable our partners to deliver professional services for our solutions. Further, the timing of services rendered will also impact the amount of professional services revenue we recognize during a period.

Unearned Revenue

Unearned revenue as of the periods presented consisted of the following (table in millions):

February 3,

January 28,

Unearned license revenue

Unearned subscription and SaaS revenue

Unearned software maintenance revenue

Unearned professional services revenue

Total unearned revenue

Unearned subscription and SaaS revenue is generally recognized over time as customers consume the services or ratably over the term of the subscription, commencing upon provisioning of the service.

Unearned software maintenance revenue is attributable to our maintenance contracts and is generally recognized ratably over the contract duration. The weighted-average remaining contractual term as of February 3, 2023 was approximately two years. Unearned professional services revenue results primarily from prepaid professional services and is generally recognized as the services are performed.

Remaining Performance Obligations and Backlog

Remaining Performance Obligations

Remaining performance obligations represent the aggregate amount of the transaction price in contracts allocated to performance obligations not delivered, or partially undelivered, as of the end of the reporting period. Remaining performance

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obligations include unearned revenue, multi-year contracts with future installment payments and certain unfulfilled orders against accepted, non-cancellable customer contracts at the end of any given period.

As of February 3, 2023, the aggregate transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations was $13.6 billion, of which approximately 54% is expected to be recognized as revenue over the next twelve months and the remainder thereafter. As of January 28, 2022, the aggregate transaction price allocated to remaining performance obligations was $12.0 billion, of which approximately 57% was expected to be recognized as revenue during fiscal 2023 and the remainder thereafter.

Remaining performance obligations did not include customer prepayments received for contracts that include certain cancellation rights, such as termination for convenience, which were included in customer deposits on the consolidated balance sheets and were $681 million as of February 3, 2023.

Backlog

Backlog is comprised of unfulfilled purchase orders or unfulfilled executed agreements at the end of a given period and is net of related estimated rebates and marketing development funds. Backlog consists of licenses, subscription and SaaS and services. As of February 3, 2023, our total backlog was $72 million, substantially all of which consisted of orders received on the last day of the quarter that were not shipped or provisioned to customers, and orders held due to our export control process. Backlog related to license was not material as of February 3, 2023. Backlog excluded from the remaining performance obligations because such contracts are subject to cancellation until the performance obligation is fulfilled was not material as of February 3, 2023.

As of January 28, 2022, our total backlog was $88 million and our backlog related to licenses was $14 million. For our backlog related to licenses, we generally expect to deliver and recognize revenue during the following quarter. Backlog totaling $36 million as of January 28, 2022 was excluded from the remaining performance obligations because such contracts are subject to cancellation until the performance obligation is fulfilled.

The amount and composition of backlog will fluctuate period to period. We do not believe the amount of backlog is indicative of future sales or revenue or that the mix of backlog at the end of any given period correlates with actual sales performance of a particular geography or particular products and services.

Cost of License Revenue, Cost of Subscription and SaaS Revenue, Cost of Services Revenue and Operating Expenses

Collectively, our cost of revenues and operating expenses primarily reflected increasing cash-based employee-related expenses, driven by an increase in headcount and salaries and the extra week in fiscal 2023.

Cost of License Revenue

Cost of license revenue primarily consists of the cost of fulfillment of our SD-WAN offerings, royalty costs in connection with technology licensed from third-party providers and amortization of intangible assets. The cost of fulfillment of our software and hardware SD-WAN offerings includes personnel costs and related overhead associated with delivery of our products.

Cost of license revenue during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Cost of license revenue

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of License revenue

Cost of license revenue remained relatively flat in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022.

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Cost of Subscription and SaaS Revenue

Cost of subscription and SaaS revenue primarily includes personnel costs and related overhead associated with hosted services supporting our SaaS offerings. Additionally, cost of subscription and SaaS revenue also includes depreciation of equipment supporting our subscription and SaaS offerings.

Cost of subscription and SaaS revenue during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Cost of subscription and SaaS revenue

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of Subscription and SaaS revenue

Cost of subscription and SaaS revenue increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily driven by growth in costs associated with hosted services to support our SaaS offerings of $56 million and growth in cash-based employee-related cost of $30 million, which was primarily driven by incremental growth in headcount. In addition, the increase was driven by increased equipment and depreciation of $23 million. These increases were partially offset by decreased amortization of intangible assets of $26 million.

Cost of Services Revenue

Cost of services revenue primarily includes the costs of personnel and related overhead to deliver technical support for our products and costs to deliver professional services. Additionally, cost of services revenue includes depreciation of equipment supporting our service offerings.

Cost of services revenue during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Cost of services revenue

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of Services revenue

Cost of services revenue increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily due to growth in cash-based employee-related expenses of $73 million, primarily driven by incremental growth in headcount and salaries and the extra week in fiscal 2023, as well as merger-related costs incurred related to our pending acquisition by Broadcom (“Merger-Related Costs”), such as retention compensation incurred to preserve our business organization through the consummation of the merger (“Retention Compensation”) of $17 million during fiscal 2023. The increase was also driven by increased stock-based compensation expense, primarily driven by increased restricted stock unit (“RSU”) awards granted to our employees.

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Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses include personnel and related overhead costs associated with the development of our products and services offerings. We continue to invest in and focus on expanding our subscription and SaaS offerings.

Research and development expenses during the periods presented were as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Research and development

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of Total revenue

Research and development expenses increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily due to growth in cash-based employee-related expenses of $167 million, primarily driven by incremental growth in salaries and the extra week in fiscal 2023. The increase was also driven by increased stock-based compensation expense of $88 million, primarily driven by increased RSU awards granted to our employees, and increased equipment, depreciation and facilities-related costs of $32 million. These increases were partially offset by increased capitalized internal-use software development costs of $58 million.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Sales and marketing expenses include personnel costs, sales commissions and related overhead associated with the sale and marketing of our license, subscription and SaaS and services offerings, as well as the cost of product launches and marketing initiatives. A significant portion of our sales commissions are deferred and recognized over the expected period of benefit.

Sales and marketing expenses during the periods presented were as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Sales and marketing

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of Total revenue

Sales and marketing expenses increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily due to higher commission costs of $83 million, resulting from increased sales volume, and an increase in costs incurred for sales enablement-based initiatives of $75 million. The increase was also driven by increased stock-based compensation of $74 million, primarily driven by increased RSU awards granted to our employees and an increase in cash-based employee-related expenses of $71 million, primarily driven by incremental growth in salaries and the extra week in fiscal 2023. In addition, the increase was driven by increased equipment and depreciation of $28 million and increased Retention Compensation of $15 million. These increases were partially offset by decreased amortization of intangible assets of $23 million.

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General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses include personnel and related overhead costs to support the business. These expenses include the costs associated with finance, human resources, IT infrastructure and legal, as well as expenses related to corporate costs and initiatives.

General and administrative expenses during the periods presented were as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

General and administrative

Stock-based compensation

Total expenses

% of Total revenue

General and administrative expenses increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily driven by increased cash-based employee-related expenses of $41 million, primarily driven by an increase in salaries, as well as increased stock-based compensation of $35 million, primarily driven by increased RSU awards granted to our employees. The increase was also driven by Merger-Related Costs of $55 million and Retention Compensation of $32 million. These increases were partially offset by the absence of certain costs incurred during fiscal 2022 related to the Spin-Off, such as legal and advisory fees, of $73 million, as well as decreased costs of $40 million relating to installment payments to certain employees as part of prior period acquisitions, which were subject to the achievement of specified employment conditions.

Investment Income

Investment income during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Investment income

% of Total revenue

Investment income increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022, primarily driven by increased interest income earned on our cash equivalents resulting from higher yields.

Interest Expense

Interest expense during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Interest expense

% of Total revenue

Interest expense increased in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022. The increase was primarily driven by the senior unsecured term loan facility on which we drew down on November 1, 2021. Interest expense on the term loan facility was $57 million in fiscal 2023 and was not material in fiscal 2022.

Refer to Note I to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information regarding the our outstanding indebtedness.

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Other Income (Expense), net

Other income (expense), net during the periods presented was as follows (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

Fiscal Year

Fiscal Year

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

$ Change

% Change

$ Change

% Change

Other income (expense), net

% of Total revenue

The change in other income (expense), net in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily driven by changes in gains and losses, whether realized or unrealized, on our investments in equity securities, as well as changes in gains and losses on foreign currency exchange.

Pursuant to a tax matters agreement entered into with Dell effective April 14, 2021 (the “Tax Matters Agreement”), we have agreed to indemnify one another for certain tax liabilities or tax benefits relating to periods prior to our spin-off from Dell on November 1, 2021 and certain adjustments to these amounts that will be recognized in future periods will be recorded in other income (expense), net on the consolidated statements of income. While the adjustments recognized were not material in fiscal 2023, we cannot reasonably predict the amount that we may receive or pay in future periods, which could introduce significant risk of variability to our consolidated statements of income.

Income Tax Provision

The following table summarizes our income tax provision during the periods presented (dollars in millions):

For the Year Ended

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

Income tax provision

Effective income tax rate

The change in our effective income tax rate for fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily driven by a higher effective income tax rate for fiscal 2023 due to the increase in global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”) from the impacts of Internal Revenue Code Section 174 research and development expense capitalization (“Section 174”), which was part of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted on December 22, 2017 (the “2017 Tax Act”) and became effective beginning in fiscal 2023. As we record impacts of GILTI as a period cost, the capitalization of foreign research and experimental costs in GILTI increases our provision for income taxes. The increase in our effective income tax rate was also driven by a decrease in foreign tax credit (“FTC”) benefit due to the disallowance of credits for certain foreign tax expenses resulting from the final FTC regulations effective for us beginning in fiscal 2023.

Prior to the Spin-Off, our financial results were included in the Dell consolidated tax return for U.S. federal income tax purposes, but our income tax provision or benefit was calculated primarily as though we were a separate taxpayer, with certain transactions between us and Dell being assessed using consolidated tax return rules. As a result of the Spin-Off, we are no longer a member of the Dell consolidated tax group, and our U.S. federal income tax will be reported separately from that of the Dell consolidated tax group. We and Dell have agreed to indemnify one another, pursuant to the Tax Matters Agreement, for certain tax liabilities or tax benefits relating to periods prior to the Spin-Off and certain adjustments to these amounts that will be recognized in future periods will be recorded in other income (expense), net on the consolidated statements of income. The actual amount that we may receive from or pay to Dell could vary depending on the outcome of tax matters arising from Dell’s future tax audits, which may not be resolved for years. Refer to Note O to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

Our effective tax rate in the future will depend upon the proportion of our income before provision for income taxes earned in the U.S. and in jurisdictions with a tax rate lower than the U.S. statutory rate. Our non-U.S. earnings are primarily earned by our subsidiary organized in Ireland, where the rate of taxation is lower than our U.S. tax rate and, as such, our annual effective tax rate can be significantly affected by the composition of our earnings in U.S. and non-U.S. jurisdictions. Our future effective tax rate may be affected by such factors as: changes in our business; changes in tax laws or statutory rates; changing interpretation of existing laws or regulations; the impact of accounting for stock-based compensation; the recognition of excess tax benefits or tax deficiencies within the income tax provision or benefit in the period in which they occur; the impact of accounting for business combinations; shifts in the amount of earnings in the U.S. compared with other regions in the world; overall levels of income before tax; changes in our international organization; the expiration of statute of limitations; and settlements of audits.

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The Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”) was enacted in August 2022, and became effective for us commencing with our fiscal 2024. The key tax provisions of the IRA relate to a new 15% corporate alternative minimum tax on adjusted financial statement income for companies with profits greater than $1.0 billion and a 1% excise tax on stock repurchases by publicly traded companies. We will continue to evaluate the impact to us as further guidance becomes available.

Our Relationship with Dell

Transactions with Dell continue to be considered related party transactions following the Spin-Off due to the MSD Stockholders’ and SLP Stockholders’ direct ownership in both VMware and Dell, as well as Mr. Dell’s executive position with Dell.

On November 1, 2021, in connection with the Spin-Off, we entered into the Commercial Framework Agreement with Dell to provide a framework under which our strategic commercial relationship will continue, particularly with respect to projects mutually agreed as having the potential to accelerate the growth of an industry, product, service, or platform that may provide the parties with a strategic market opportunity. The Commercial Framework Agreement has an initial term of five years, with automatic one-year renewals occurring annually thereafter, subject to certain terms and conditions.

The information provided below includes a summary of transactions with Dell.

Transactions with Dell

We engaged with Dell in the following ongoing related party transactions, which resulted in revenue and receipts, and unearned revenue for us:

• Pursuant to original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) and reseller arrangements, Dell integrates or bundles our products and services with Dell’s products and sells them to end users. Dell also acts as a distributor, purchasing our standalone products and services for resale to end-user customers through VMware-authorized resellers. Revenue under these arrangements is presented net of related marketing development funds and rebates paid to Dell. In addition, we provide professional services to end users based upon contractual agreements with Dell.

• Dell purchases products and services from us for its internal use.

• From time to time, we and Dell enter into agreements to collaborate on technology projects, in connection with which Dell pays us for services or reimburses us for costs.

During the years ended February 3, 2023, January 28, 2022 and January 29, 2021, revenue from Dell accounted for 38%, 38% and 35% of our consolidated revenue, respectively. During the years ended February 3, 2023, January 28, 2022 and January 29, 2021, revenue recognized on transactions where Dell acted as an OEM accounted for 14%, 13% and 12% of total revenue from Dell, respectively, and 5%, 5% and 4% of our consolidated revenue, respectively.

Dell purchases our products and services directly from us, as well as through our channel partners. Information about our revenue and receipts, and unearned revenue from such arrangements, for the periods presented consisted of the following (table in millions):

Revenue and Receipts

Unearned Revenue

For the Year Ended

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

February 3,

January 28,

Reseller revenue

Internal-use revenue

Receipts from Dell for collaborative technology projects were not material during the periods presented.

Sales through Dell as a distributor, which is included in reseller revenue, comprise the largest route-to-market for our sales.

Customer deposits resulting from transactions with Dell were $766 million and $298 million as of February 3, 2023 and January 28, 2022, respectively.

We engaged with Dell in the following ongoing related party transactions, which resulted in costs to us:

• We purchase and lease products and purchase services from Dell.

• From time to time, we and Dell enter into agreements to collaborate on technology projects, in connection with which we pay Dell for services it provides to us.

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• Through the end of fiscal 2023, in certain geographic regions where we did not have an established legal entity, we contracted with Dell subsidiaries for support services and support from Dell personnel who were managed by us. The costs incurred by Dell on our behalf related to these employees were charged to us with a mark-up intended to approximate costs that would have been incurred had we contracted for such services with an unrelated third party. These costs are included as expenses on our consolidated statements of income and primarily include salaries, benefits, travel and occupancy expenses. Beginning with the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we no longer contract for such services and support.

• Prior to the Spin-Off, in certain geographic regions, Dell filed a consolidated indirect tax return, which included value added taxes and other indirect taxes collected by us from our customers. We remitted the indirect taxes to Dell, and Dell remitted the tax payment to the foreign governments on our behalf.

• We have agency arrangements with Dell that enable us to sell our subscriptions and services, leveraging the Dell enterprise relationships and end customer contracts.

Information about our payments for such arrangements during the periods presented consisted of the following (table in millions):

For the Year Ended

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

Purchases and leases of products and purchases of services (1)

Dell subsidiary support and administrative costs

(1) Amount includes indirect taxes that were remitted to Dell during the periods presented.

We also purchase Dell products through Dell’s channel partners, however such amounts were not material during the periods presented.

From time to time, we and Dell also enter into joint marketing, sales, branding and product development arrangements, for which both parties may incur costs.

Dell Financial Services (“DFS”)

DFS provides financing to certain of our end users at our end users’ discretion. Upon acceptance of the financing arrangement by both our end users and DFS, amounts classified as trade accounts receivable are reclassified to the current portion of due from related parties on the consolidated balance sheets . Revenue recognized on transactions financed through DFS was recorded net of financing fees. Financing fees on arrangements accepted by both parties were $33 million, $29 million and $60 million during the years ended February 3, 2023, January 28, 2022 and January 29, 2021, respectively.

Due To/From Related Parties

Amounts in the current and non-current portions of due from related parties and due to related parties on the consolidated balance sheets as of February 3, 2023 and January 28, 2022 included amounts due to Dell pursuant to the Tax Matters Agreement. Refer to Note O to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

Amounts included in the current portion of due from related parties , with the exception of DFS and tax obligati ons, are settled in cash within 60 days of each quarter-end.

Special Dividend

On November 1, 2021, we paid an $11.5 billion Special Dividend, pro rata, to each of the holders of Class A Stock and Class B Stock, including Dell, as of the Record Date. Based upon the number of shares of common stock held by Dell as of the Record Date, approximately $9.3 billion in cash was paid to Dell. Refer to Note A to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information regarding the Spin-Off.

Notes Payable to Dell

During the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we repaid the outstanding promissory note payable to Dell of $270 million. During each of fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021, interest expense on the note payable to Dell was not significant.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

As of the periods presented, we held cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as follows (table in millions):

February 3,

January 28,

Cash and cash equivalents

Short-term investments

Total cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments

Cash equivalents primarily consisted of amounts invested in money market funds. To manage our credit risk, we monitor the diversity and concentration of our portfolio and limit the amount of investments from any issuer or fund.

We continue to expect that cash generated by operations will be our primary source of liquidity. We also continue to believe that existing cash, cash equivalents and our borrowing capacity, together with any cash generated from operations, will be sufficient to fund our operations for at least the next twelve months. While we believe these cash sources will be sufficient to fund our operations, our overall level of cash needs may be affected by capital allocation decisions that may include the number and size of acquisitions, debt repayments and stock repurchases, among other things. In addition, we plan to continue with our balanced capital allocation policy through investing in our product and solution offerings, and acquisitions. Additionally, given the unpredictable nature of our outstanding legal proceedings, an unfavorable resolution of one or more legal proceedings, claims, or investigations could have a negative impact on our overall liquidity.

The 2017 Tax Act imposed a one-time transition tax on accumulated earnings of foreign subsidiaries (“Transition Tax”) and eliminated U.S. Federal taxes on foreign subsidiary distributions. The Transition Tax was calculated on a separate tax return basis. Our liability related to the Transition Tax as of February 3, 2023 was $445 million, which we expect to pay over the next three years pursuant to a letter agreement between Dell, EMC and us executed during the first quarter of fiscal 2020. Actual tax payments made to Dell pursuant to the Tax Agreements, as defined in Note O to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, may differ materially from our total estimated tax liability calculated on a separate tax return basis. Pursuant to the Tax Matters Agreement with Dell, we have agreed to indemnify one another for certain tax liabilities or tax benefits relating to periods prior to the Spin-Off and certain adjustments to these amounts that will be recognized in future periods will be recorded in other income (expense), net on the consolidated statements of income. In addition, changes to Section 174 enacted as part of the 2017 Tax Act require companies to capitalize and amortize research and development expenditures for tax purposes. This provision became effective for us beginning in fiscal 2023 and caused an increase in our taxes in that year. If this provision is not deferred, repealed or modified, our cash taxes may further increase in the future.

Our cash flows summarized for the periods presented were as follows (table in millions):

For the Year Ended

February 3,

January 28,

January 29,

Net cash provided by (used in):

Operating activities

Investing activities

Financing activities

Net increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash

Operating Activities

Cash provided by operating activities decreased by $57 million during fiscal 2023 compared fiscal 2022, primarily due to increased cash payments for employee-related expenses, including salaries, bonuses and commissions, resulting primarily from growth in headcount and salaries, as well as higher cash outflows related to operating expenses. The decrease was also driven by increased interest payments related to our unsecured senior notes and term loan facility and increased tax payments compared to fiscal 2022. These increases were offset in part by increased cash collections during fiscal 2023.

Investing Activities

Cash used in investing activities increased by $36 million during fiscal 2023 compared fiscal 2022, primarily driven by an increase in additions to property and equipment and a decrease in sales of investments in equity securities. These activities were offset in part by an increase in proceeds from the disposition of assets.

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Financing Activities

Cash used in financing activities decreased by $2.7 billion during fiscal 2023 compared fiscal 2022, primarily driven by the absence of the $11.5 billion Special Dividend paid during fiscal 2022, as well as a decrease of $1.1 billion in cash used for repurchases of shares of our common stock during fiscal 2023, which resulted from the suspension of our stock repurchase program in connection with our entry into the Merger Agreement during the second quarter of fiscal 2023. These activities were offset in part by the absence of aggregate proceeds received in fiscal 2022 of $9.9 billion from the issuance of senior notes and borrowings under the senior unsecured term loan (the “Term Loan”), as well as an increase of $1.8 billion in aggregate repayments towards our Term Loan.

Debt

Unsecured Senior Notes

We have unsecured senior notes (“Senior Notes”) outstanding with an aggregate net carrying value of $9.2 billion as of February 3, 2023. The Senior Notes mature between August 2023 and August 2031 and contain restrictive covenants that, in certain circumstances, limit our ability to create certain liens, to enter into certain sale and leaseback transactions and to consolidate, merge, sell or otherwise dispose of all or substantially all of our assets. During fiscal 2023, fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2021, interest paid for the Senior Notes was $230 million, $185 million and $170 million, respectively.

As of February 3, 2023, the aggregate future principal and interest payments on the outstanding Senior Notes were $10.4 billion, with $1.2 billion payable within 12 months.

Senior Unsecured Term Loan Facility

We have a three-year senior unsecured term loan facility and a five-year senior unsecured term loan facility that provided us with a one-time aggregate borrowing capacity of up to $4.0 billion (the “2021 Term Loan”). As of February 3, 2023, the outstanding balance was $1.2 billion, none of which is payable within 12 months. Given the variable nature of the interest on the term loan facilities, including when the repayment will take place, interest payments have not been included in the amount payable in future periods. During fiscal 2023, interest paid for the 2021 Term Loan was $55 million, and was not material during fiscal 2022.

Refer to Note I to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information regarding our outstanding indebtedness.

Stock Repurchase Program

From time to time, we repurchase stock pursuant to authorized stock repurchase programs in open market transactions as permitted by securities laws and other legal requirements. We are not obligated to purchase any shares under our stock repurchase programs. The timing of any repurchases and the actual number of shares repurchased depends on a variety of factors, including our stock price, cash requirements for operations and business combinations, corporate and regulatory requirements and other market and economic conditions. Purchases may be discontinued at any time we believe additional purchases are not warranted. All shares repurchased under our stock repurchase programs are retired.

In connection with our entry into the Merger Agreement, we suspended our stock repurchase program, and we did not repurchase Common Stock subsequent to the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Refer to Note P to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for stock repurchase authorizations approved by our board of directors during the periods presented.

Contractual Obligations

In addition to the Senior Notes and the senior unsecured term loan facility discussed earlier, we have other contractual obligations that impact our liquidity. The following represents our other contractual obligations as of February 3, 2023.

• Future Lease Commitments —We have operating and finance leases primarily related to office facilities and equipment. As of February 3, 2023, our future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating and finance leases were $1.3 billion, with $185 million payable within 12 months. The amounts exclude legally binding minimum lease payments for leases signed but not yet commenced of $19 million, as well as expected sublease income.

• Purchase Obligations —Our purchase obligations consist of agreements to purchase goods and services entered into in the ordinary course of business. As of February 3, 2023, we had non-cancellable unconditional purchase obligations of $239 million, with $180 million payable within 12 months.

• Tax Obligations and Uncertain Tax Positions —As of February 3, 2023, we expect future cash payments related to the Transition Tax to be $445 million, with $111 million payable within 12 months. As of February 3, 2023, we had $575 million of gross uncertain tax benefits, excluding interest and penalties. The timing of future payments relating to the

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uncertain tax benefits is highly uncertain. Based on the timing and outcome of examinations of our subsidiaries, the result of the expiration of statutes of limitations for specific jurisdictions or the timing and result of ruling requests from taxing authorities, it is reasonably possible that within the next 12 months total unrecognized tax benefits could be potentially reduced by approximately $15 million.

• Asset Retirement Obligations —Asset retirement obligations represent the estimated costs to bring certain office buildings that we lease back to their original condition after the termination of the lease. As of February 3, 2023, we had asset retirement obligations of $22 million, with an immaterial amount payable within 12 months.

Refer to Note D to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information on our contractual commitments, guarantees and indemnification obligations.

Critical Accounting Estimates

In preparing our consolidated financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”), we are required to make estimates, assumptions and judgments that affect the amounts reported on our financial statements and the accompanying disclosures. Estimates and assumptions about future events and their effects cannot be determined with certainty and therefore require the exercise of judgment. We base our estimates, assumptions and judgments on historical experience and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. These estimates may change in future periods and will be recognized in the consolidated financial statements as new events occur and additional information becomes known. Actual results could differ from those estimates and any such differences may be material to our financial statements. We believe that the critical accounting estimates set forth below involve a higher degree of judgment and complexity in their application than our other accounting estimates. Our senior management has reviewed our critical accounting estimates and related disclosures with the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors. Historically, our assumptions and judgments relative to our critical accounting estimates have not differed materially from actual results. Refer to Note A to the consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information on significant accounting policies used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

We derive revenue from licensing software under perpetual, term-based, and consumption-based contracts and related software maintenance and support, software subscriptions (“subscriptions”), hosted services, training and consulting services. We account for a contract with a customer if all criteria defined by the guidance are met, including collectability of the consideration is probable. At inception of a contract with a customer, we evaluate whether the promised products and services represent distinct performance obligations within the context of the contract. Performance obligations that are both capable of being distinct on their own and distinct within the context of the contract are recognized on their own as distinct performance obligations. Performance obligations under which both of these two criteria are not met are recognized as a combined, single performance obligation. Determining whether our licenses, subscriptions and services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately or together often involves assumptions and significant judgments that can have a significant impact on the timing and amount of revenue recognized.

Revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of licenses, subscriptions or services to our customer in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive in exchange for those licenses, subscriptions or services. Control of a promised license, subscription or service may be transferred to a customer either at a point in time or over time, which affects the timing of revenue recognition. Licenses that represent distinct performance obligations are recognized at a point in time when the software license keys have been made available to the customer. Licenses sold as part of our subscriptions that do not represent distinct performance obligations are recognized over time along with the associated services that form a combined performance obligation with the software. Management assesses relevant contractual terms in contracts with customers and applies significant judgment in identifying and accounting for all terms and conditions in certain contracts. Certain contracts include third-party offerings and revenue may be recognized net of the third-party costs, based upon an assessment as to whether we had control of the underlying third-party offering before it is transferred to the customer.

In addition, revenue from software licenses sold to OEMs is recognized when the sale to the end user occurs. Revenue is recognized upon reporting by the OEMs of their sales, and for the period where information of the underlying sales has not been made available, revenue is recognized based upon estimated sales. Our VCPP partners license on-premises software from us on a monthly basis under a usage-based model. Revenue recognition is based on fees associated with reported license consumption by the VCPP partners and includes estimates for the period when consumption information has not been made available. VCPP partners also purchase hosted services, for which revenue is recognized over time as our partners consume the services or ratably over the contract term, commencing upon provisioning of the service.

We enter into revenue contracts with multiple performance obligations in which a customer may purchase combinations of licenses, maintenance and support, subscriptions, hosted services, training, consulting services and rights to future products and

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services. For contracts with multiple performance obligations, we allocate total transaction value to the identified underlying performance obligations based on relative standalone selling price (“SSP”). We typically estimate SSP of performance obligations based on observable transactions when the obligations are sold on a standalone basis and those prices fall within a reasonable range. We utilize the residual approach to estimate SSP primarily for offerings when sold to customers at highly variable pricing. Changes in assumptions or judgments used in determining standalone selling price could have a significant impact on the timing and amount of revenue we report in a particular period.

Professional services include design, implementation, training and consulting services. Professional services performed by us represent distinct performance obligations as they do not modify or customize licenses sold. These services are not highly interdependent or highly interrelated to licenses sold such that a customer would not be able to use the licenses without the professional services. Revenue from professional services engagements performed for a fixed fee, for which we are able to make reasonably dependable estimates of progress toward completion, is recognized based on progress. We believe this method of measurement provides the closest depiction of our performance in transferring control of the professional services.

Rebate Reserves

We offer rebates to certain channel partners, which are recognized as a reduction to revenue or unearned revenue. Rebates based on actual partner sales are recognized as a reduction to revenue as the underlying revenue is recognized. Rebates earned based upon partner achievement of cumulative level of sales are recognized as a reduction of revenue proportionally for each sale that is required to achieve the target.

The estimated reserves for channel rebates and sales incentives are based on channel partners’ actual performance against the terms and conditions of the programs, historical trends and the value of the rebates. The accuracy of these reserves for these rebates and sales incentives depends on our ability to estimate these items and could have a significant impact on the timing and amount of revenue we report.

Deferred Commissions

Sales commissions, including the employer portion of payroll taxes, earned by our sales force are considered incremental and recoverable costs of obtaining a contract and are deferred and generally amortized on a straight-line basis over the expected period of benefit. The expected period of benefit is generally determined using the contract term or underlying technology life, if renewals are expected and the renewal commissions are not commensurate with the initial commissions. The determination of the expected period of benefit requires us to make significant estimates and assumptions, including the life of the underlying technology and the estimated period of contract renewal. We believe the assumptions and estimates we have made are reasonable. Differences in the estimated period of benefit could have a significant impact on the timing and amount of amortization expense recognized.

Income Taxes

Prior to the Spin-Off, our financial results were included in the Dell consolidated tax return for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Our income tax provision or benefit was calculated primarily as though we were a separate taxpayer, with certain transactions between us and Dell being assessed using consolidated tax return rules. The difference between the income taxes payable that was calculated on a separate tax return basis and the amount paid to Dell pursuant to our tax sharing agreement with Dell was presented as a component of additional paid-in capital. As a result of the Spin-Off, we are no longer a member of the Dell consolidated tax group and our U.S. income tax will be reported separately from that of the Dell consolidated tax group.

We establish reserves for income taxes to address potential exposures involving tax positions that could be challenged by federal, state and foreign tax authorities, which may result in proposed assessments. In the ordinary course of our global business there are many intercompany transactions, including the transfer of intellectual property, where the ultimate tax determination could be challenged by the tax authorities. In the instance of transfers of intellectual property, the related deferred tax asset recognized is based on the intellectual property’s current fair value. Management applies significant judgment when determining the fair value of the intellectual property, which serves as the tax basis of the deferred tax asset, and in evaluating the associated tax laws in the applicable jurisdictions. Our assumptions, estimates and judgments used to determine the reserve relating to these positions considers current tax laws, interpretation of current tax laws and possible outcomes of current and future examinations conducted by tax authorities. As a result of the Spin-Off, we are no longer a member of Dell’s consolidated tax group, however, we are still subject to potential tax liabilities for the periods prior to the Spin-Off. We are also subject to the periodic examination of our income tax returns by the IRS and other domestic and foreign tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our reserves and any potential adjustments that may result from the current and future examinations. We believe such estimates to be reasonable; however, the final determination from examinations and changes in tax laws could significantly impact the amounts provided for income taxes in the consolidated financial statements.

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Our deferred tax assets reflect our estimates of the amount and category of future taxable income, such as income from operations and capital gains, and also take into account valuation allowances that consider other key factors that might restrict our ability to realize the deferred tax assets. Actual operating results and the underlying amount and category of income in future years could render our current assumptions, judgments and estimates of recoverable net deferred taxes inaccurate.