Symantec 2014 Annual Report Download - page 96

Changes in industry structure and market conditions could lead to charges related to discontinuances of
certain of our products or businesses and asset impairments.
In response to changes in industry and market conditions, we may be required to strategically reallocate our
resources and consider restructuring, disposing of, or otherwise exiting businesses. Any decision to limit
investment in or dispose of or otherwise exit businesses may result in the recording of special charges, such as
inventory and technology-related write-offs, workforce reduction costs, charges relating to consolidation of
excess facilities, or claims from third parties who were resellers or users of discontinued products. Our estimates
with respect to the useful life or ultimate recoverability of our carrying basis of assets, including purchased
intangible assets, could change as a result of such assessments and decisions. Although in certain instances, our
supply agreements allow us the option to cancel, reschedule, and adjust our requirements based on our business
needs prior to firm orders being placed, our loss contingencies may include liabilities for contracts that we cannot
cancel, reschedule or adjust with contract manufacturers and suppliers. Further, our estimates relating to the
liabilities for excess facilities are affected by changes in real estate market conditions. Additionally, we are
required to evaluate goodwill impairment on an annual basis and between annual evaluations in certain
circumstances, and future goodwill impairment evaluations may result in a charge to earnings.
Our inability to successfully recover from a disaster or other business continuity event could impair our ability
to deliver our products and services and harm our business.
We are heavily reliant on our technology and infrastructure to provide our products and services to our
customers. For example, we host many of our products using third-party data center facilities and we do not
control the operation of these facilities. These facilities are vulnerable to damage, interruption or performance
problems from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications failures and similar events.
They are also subject to break-ins, computer viruses, sabotage, intentional acts of vandalism and other
misconduct. The occurrence of a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, a decision to close the facilities without
adequate notice or other unanticipated problems could result in lengthy interruptions in the delivery of our
products and services.
Furthermore, our business administration, human resources and finance services depend on the proper
functioning of our computer, telecommunication and other related systems and operations. A disruption or failure
of these systems or operations because of a disaster or other business continuity event could cause data to be lost
or otherwise delay our ability to complete sales and provide the highest level of service to our customers. In
addition we could have difficulty producing accurate financial statements on a timely basis which could affect
the trading value of our stock. Although we endeavor to ensure there is redundancy in these systems and that they
are regularly backed-up, there are no assurances that data recovery in the event of a disaster would be effective or
occur in an efficient manner.
Any errors, defects, disruptions or other performance problems with our products and services could harm our
reputation and may damage our customers’ businesses. For example, we may experience disruptions, outages and
other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software
errors, capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of users accessing our website simultaneous, fraud
or security attacks. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance
problems within an acceptable period of time. Interruptions in our products and services could impact our
revenues or cause customers to cease doing business with us. In addition, our business would be harmed if any of
events of this nature caused our customers and potential customers to believe our services are unreliable. Our
operations are dependent upon our ability to protect our technology infrastructure against damage from business
continuity events that could have a significant disruptive effect on our operations. We could potentially lose
customer data or experience material adverse interruptions to our operations or delivery of services to our clients
in a disaster recovery scenario.
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