Symantec 2001 Annual Report Download - page 19

International Sales Revenues outside of North America represented
approximately 45%, 41% and 37% of our net revenues for fiscal 2001,
2000 and 1999, respectively.
The majority of our net revenues from Europe are derived from sales
by affiliates of our major United States distributors. Additionally, we
sell our products through authorized distributors, which may be
restricted to specified territories. For some of our products, we trans-
late the documentation, software and packaging into the local language
and prepare marketing programs for each local market.
We have marketing offices in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium,
Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia,
Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Taiwan, Turkey, 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 com-
mon 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
Consumer Product Support Our product support program provides
free self-help online services to all consumer customers worldwide.
In some countries, access to free telephone support is also provided for
a limited period of 30 to 90 days depending upon the country. After
the initial period, telephone support is provided for a fee throughout
North America, as well as portions of Asia Pacific and Europe. For
some of our international customers, we continue to transition our
product support to be entirely fee based telephone support, along with
free self-help online support. Through LiveUpdate, we provide online
access to application bug fixes and/or patches for most of our currently
marketed and developed products.
Enterprise Security Support Our product support program provides
annual support contracts to all enterprise customers worldwide.
Our annual support contracts provide 1) hot-line service delivered by
telephone, fax, e-mail and over the Internet; 2) immediate patches for
severe problems; 3) periodic software updates; 4) access to our techni-
cal knowledge base and FAQ facility; and 5) an invitation to the annual
user group meeting.
We revise these fee-based support programs from time to time as
customer requirements change and as market trends dictate.
Product Development, Partnerships, Investments and Acquisitions
We use a multiple product sourcing strategy that includes, as necessary:
•internal development;
•licensing from third parties;
•investment in companies; 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 focused product
development groups with support from our core technology group.
Each segment is responsible for its own design, development,
documentation and quality assurance.
Independent contractors are used for aspects of the product
development process. In addition, elements of some of our products
are licensed from third-party developers.
We invest in companies with emerging technologies and companies
that promote the sale and use of our products. These investments are
done in lieu of an acquisition when timing is inappropriate or when
the business models and sectors fall out of our strategic requirements.
These investments are complementary and can enhance both financial
returns and market growth.
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 of technologies, companies, and products
and dispositions of technologies and products and may acquire and/or
dispose of other technologies, companies and products in the future.
Competition The computer software market is intensely competitive
and is subject to rapid changes in technology. It is influenced by the
strategic direction of major computer hardware manufacturers, ISPs,
Application Service Providers (“ASP”s), key application software
vendors and operating system providers. Our competitiveness depends
on our ability to deliver products that meet our customers’needs by
enhancing our existing solutions and offering reliable, scalable and
standardized new solutions on a timely basis. We have limited
resources, and as a result, we must deploy resources thoughtfully. The
principal competitive factors in our consumer products and enterprise
security and administration segments are quality, employment of the
most advanced technology, time to market, price, reputation, breadth of
product offerings, customer support, brand recognition, and sales and
marketing teams. In our services segment, the principal competitive
factors include technical capability, customer responsiveness, price,
ability to attract and retain talented and experienced personnel, and
reputation within the industry.
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