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 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 , our customers could confidence in us, and our ability to maintain and expand our subscription and SaaS offerings would be .
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 cloud and performance , 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 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. 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 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 to adapt our product and service offerings to meet these and rapidly evolving trends our operating results could be 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 .
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 .
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 of our newer product and service offerings. To the extent that adoption rates for our newer products and services are not sufficient to offset in revenue growth for our established server virtualization offerings, our overall revenue growth rates may materially or our revenue may substantially. Additionally, we may to realize returns on our investments in new initiatives and our operating results could be materially 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 to adjust, develop and implement go-to-market strategies, our financial results may be materially 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 of substantial new capabilities, which may subdue initial demand for the new versions or demand for existing versions until the customer is ready to purchase and install the newest release. If we are 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 affected. We may also to 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 to take of new market 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 impact our customers’ purchasing decisions. developments that affect financial institutions, transactional counterparties or other third parties, such as bank , or or speculation about any similar events or risks, could lead to market-wide liquidity , 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 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 a preceding tax sharing agreement. A substantial of alignment or between us and Dell regarding the applicability or interpretation of the Tax Agreements, or any material tax liability arising pursuant to the Tax Agreements, could 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, or , the opinion may be . 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 with or any of the conclusions in the opinion of counsel or that a court will not sustain such a . 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 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 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 the Company in any legal, regulatory, legislative or administrative proceedings. Consequently, our business, financial condition and operating results could be materially 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 actors, may not have the capability to detect certain types of activities, and may not capture and surface information sufficient to 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 in eradicating in all instances previously identified or known risks, particularly in scenarios where our credentials and related policies have been or obtained externally. Employees or contractors have also bypassed our access control mechanisms and introduced in, and the 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 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 internal controls and business processes that could introduce to . Any such 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 these customers and partners in . In addition, we have already been, and may continue to be, subject to demands, and lawsuits arising out of Broadcom’s proposed acquisition of VMware. We may also be subject to demands, , lawsuits, regulatory and Congressional inquiries relating to cybersecurity . From time to time, we also receive inquiries from and have discussions with government entities regarding our compliance with laws and regulations. Such , , regulatory inquiries, and proceedings can be and time-consuming, 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 for certain private offering exemptions under the Securities Act that would otherwise make our public offerings of debt more and we are 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 , we could incur significant costs, and our financial and operating results could be materially 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 impact other stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and may also affect our stock price. The MSD Stockholders and SLP Stockholders collectively 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 impacting the efficacy of our foreign currency hedging strategy and our operating results. Any future of foreign currency exchange rates the U.S. dollar would likely result in additional 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. or 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 to these same types of , the response to or resolution of which may be beyond our control. Additionally, any such could cause us to incur significant costs to repair 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 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 infrastructure in the U.S. and internationally and their potential to increase political in regions where we, our customers, partners and our vendors do business, have the potential to our business, our third-party suppliers, or the business of our customers and partners, and may cause us to experience higher 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 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 to anticipate reporting requirements and expectations in this emerging area, our reputation may be affected, and we could be to increased risk of . Additionally, if we are perceived as to make or accurately report on our on our ESG goals or to follow through on our commitments, our brand and our reputation may be , we may be to increased risk of , our ability to attract and retain employees may be and our financial performance and stock price may be affected.
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