Yahoo 2003 Annual Report Download - page 15

than we have with our users through certain of our pre- EMPLOYEES
mium services. This gives them a potential advantage over As of December 31, 2003, we had approximately 5,500
us in targeting the sale of enhanced services to their user full-time employees. Our future success is substantially
base. dependent on the performance of our senior management
and key technical personnel, and our continuing ability to
As a result of our recent acquisitions of Inktomi and attract and retain highly qualified technical and manage-
Overture, we compete directly with other providers of rial personnel. See the ‘‘Risk Factors’’ section below for a
Web search and related search services, including, among further discussion of certain risks related to our
others, Ask Jeeves, Inc., Google Inc. and Looksmart, Ltd. employees.
We also face competition from companies focused on AVAILABLE INFORMATION
markets where expertise in a particular segment of the
market may provide them a competitive advantage over Yahoo!’s Website is located at http://www.yahoo.com.
us. Two of these competitors, Amazon.com, Inc. and Yahoo! makes available free of charge, on or through its
eBay Inc., are expanding their positions as e-commerce Website, its annual, quarterly and current reports, and any
merchants to leverage advantages from the scale of their amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practi-
commerce platforms to offer informational and commu- cable after electronically filing such reports with the Secu-
nity features that are competitive with the services we rities and Exchange Commission (‘‘SEC’’). Information
provide. contained on Yahoo!’s Website is not part of this report or
any other report filed with the SEC.
Internationally, we compete with local portals that are
predominantly supported by the local telecommunication RISK FACTORS
providers, which gives them a potential competitive advan-
If our competitors are more successful in attracting and
tage over us because they typically already have a direct
retaining customers and users, then our revenues could
billing relationship with their users.
decline.
We compete with many other providers of online naviga-
See the ‘‘Risk Factors’’ section below for additional infor- tion, Web search, commercial search, information,
mation regarding competition. entertainment, business, recruitment, community, elec-
tronic commerce and Internet access services. As we
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
expand the scope of our Internet offerings, we will com-
We continually enhance existing services and develop new pete directly with a greater number of Internet sites,
services to meet evolving consumer demand for technolog- media companies, and companies providing business ser-
ical innovation. Our domestic engineering and production vices across a wide range of different online services,
teams are primarily located in our Sunnyvale, California including:
headquarters and in Pasadena, California, Dallas, Texas
and Bangalore, India. Locally-based teams handle most • companies offering communications, Web search,
international production and engineering. We have devel- commercial search, information, community and
oped internally, acquired or licensed the properties and entertainment services and Internet access either
services we offer. on a stand alone basis or integrated into other
products and media properties;
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
•vertical markets where competitors may have
We seek to protect our intellectual property through pat- advantages in expertise, brand recognition, avail-
ent, copyright, trade secret and trademark law and able financial and other resources, and other
through contractual restrictions, such as confidentiality factors;
agreements. We consider the Yahoo! trademark to be one
of our most valuable assets and we have registered this • online employment recruiting companies; and
trademark in the United States and other countries
throughout the world. • online merchant hosting services.
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