Symantec 2000 Annual Report Download - page 20

through major retailers. End-user rebates are accrued when
revenue is recorded.
Our return policy allows distributors, subject to various limitations,
to return purchased products in exchange for new products or for
credit toward future purchases. End-users may return products
through dealers and distributors for a full refund, within a reason-
able period from the date of purchase. Also subject to limitations,
retailers may return older versions of products. Various distribu-
tors and resellers have different return policies that may impact the
level of products that are returned to us. Product returns occur
when we introduce upgrades and new versions of products or
when distributors order too much product. In addition, competi-
tive factors often require us to offer rights of return for products
that distributors or retail stores are unable to sell.
International Sales Revenues outside of North America repre-
sented approximately 41%, 37%and 34%of our net revenues for
fiscal 2000, 1999 and 1998, respectively.
The majority of our net revenues from Europe are derived from
sales by affiliates of our major United States distributors. In other
countries, we sell our products through authorized distributors. In
some countries, these distributors are restricted to specified ter-
ritories. We adapt some of our products by translating the
documentation and software, where necessary, and preparing
marketing programs for each local market.
We have marketing offices in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada,
China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hol-
land, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Singa-
pore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab
Emirates and the United Kingdom. These local offices facilitate
our marketing and distribution in international markets. Our
international operations are subject to various risks common to
international operations, including:
•government regulations;
•import restrictions;
•currency fluctuations;
•repatriation restrictions; and
•in some jurisdictions, reduced protection for our
copyrights and trademarks.
Customer Support Our product support program provides a
wide variety of free and fee-based technical support services to
our customers. We provide most of our customers with unlimited
free online support. For some of our international customers we
provide free telephone support, limited to a period of 30 to 90 days.
We plan to transition a significant amount of these international
customers to unlimited free online support over the next two
years. Through LiveUpdate, we provide online access to applica-
tion bug fixes and/or patches for most of our currently marketed
and developed products. In addition, we offer both enterprise and
consumer customers a variety of fee-based options designed to
meet their technical support requirements. We revise these fee-
based support programs from time to time as customer
requirements change and as market trends dictate.
Product Development, Partnerships and Acquisitions
We use a multiple product sourcing strategy that includes, as necessary:
•internal development;
•licensing from third parties; and
•acquisitions of technologies, product lines or companies.
We develop software products that are designed to operate on a
variety of operating systems. We typically develop new products
and enhancements of existing products through our business
segments with support from our core technology group. Each
segment is responsible for its own design, development, docu-
mentation and quality assurance.
Independent contractors are used for aspects of the product
development process. In addition, elements of some of our prod-
ucts are licensed from third-party developers.
We use strategic acquisitions, as necessary, to provide certain
technology, people and products for our overall product strategy.
We have completed a number of acquisitions and dispositions of
technologies, companies and products and may acquire and dis-
pose of other technologies, companies and products in the future.
Competition The computer software market is intensely com-
petitive and is subject to rapid changes in technology. It is
influenced by the strategic direction of major computer hardware
manufacturers, ISPs, Application Service Providers (“ASPs”) and
operating system providers. Our competitiveness depends on our
ability to deliver products that meet our customers’ needs by
enhancing existing solutions and offering successful new solu-
tions on a timely basis. We have limited resources, and as a result,
we must deploy resources thoughtfully. The principal competitive
factors in our Consumer and Small Business, Enterprise Solu-
tions and e-Support segments are quality, employment of the
most advanced technology, price, reputation, breadth of product
offerings, customer support and sales and marketing terms. In
our Professional Services segment, the principal competitive fac-
tors include technical capability, responsiveness, price and
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