We are a global leader in supplying the electronic design automation (EDA) software that engineers use to design and test integrated circuits (ICs), also known as chips.chips or silicon. We provide software and hardware used to validate the electronic systems that incorporate chips and the software that runs on them, including cloud-based digital design flow to boost chip-design development productivity. We also provide technical services and support to help our customers develop advanced chips and electronic systems. These products and services are part of our Design Automation segment.

We also offer a broad and comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor intellectual property (IP) products, which are pre-designed circuits that engineers use as components of larger chip designs rather than designing those circuits themselves. We provide software and hardware used to validate the electronic systems that incorporate chips and the software that runs on them. To complement these offerings, we provide technical services and support to help our customers develop advanced chips and electronic systems. These products and services are part of our Semiconductor & System Design IP segment.

We are also a leading provider of software tools and services that improve the security, quality and compliance of software in a wide variety of industries, including electronics, financial services, automotive, medicine, energy and industrials. These tools and services are part of our Software Integrity segment.

In this era of Smart Everything, we have seen a remarkable proliferation of consumer and wireless electronic products, particularly mobile devices. The growth of the Internet and cloud computing has provided people with new ways to create, store, and share information. At the same time, the increasing use of electronics in cars, buildings, appliances, and other consumer products is creating a connected landscape of smart devices. Numerous software applications (apps) have been developed to expand the potential of these connected devices. The increasing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is driving an increase in the activity of new and existing chip and system design companies around the world.

These devices are manufactured using masks to direct beams of light onto a wafer of silicon. At such small dimensions, the wavelength of light itself can become an obstacle to production, proving too big to create such

dense features and requiring creative and complicated new approaches from designers.approaches. Designers have turned to new manufacturing techniques to solve these problems, such as multiple-patterning lithography, FinFET 3D transistors and FinFET transistors,Gate-All-Around Field-Effect transistor structures, which in turn have introduced new challenges to design and production.

The popularity of mobile devices and other electronic products has increased demand for chips and systems with greater functionality and performance, reduced size, and lower power consumption. Our customers, who design those products, are facing intense pressure to deliver innovative offerings in shorter timeframes and at lower prices. In other words, innovation in chip and systemsystems design often hinges on providing products “better,” “sooner,” and “cheaper” than competitors. The designsdesign of these chips and systems areis extremely complex and necessitatenecessitates state-of-the-art design solutions. Over the past several years, market verticals including AI, 5G, automotive and cloud computing infrastructure have contributed to the ongoing demand for our products and services.

A similar dynamic is at work in the software arena, whether the software is embedded on a chip or as a standalone.used in other applications. The pace of innovation often requires developers to deliver more secure, high-quality software, which can include millions of lines of code, in increasingly frequent release cycles. Bugs, defects and security vulnerabilities in code can be difficult to detect and expensive to fix. But,Despite these challenges, it is crucial to have high-quality, secure code to ensure consumers' privacy and safety, especially at a time when software is critical in many industries across a growing array of smart devices, it is crucial to have high-quality, secure code to ensure consumers’ privacy and safety.devices.

Software developers are responsible for writing code that not only accomplishes theirits goals as efficiently as possible but also runs securely and is free of defects. We offer products that can help developers write higher quality, more secure code by analyzing their code for quality defects and known security vulnerabilities, adding intelligence and automation to the software testing process, and helping to eliminate defects in a systematic manner. To the extent thatAs developers make use of open source software in their code, our products can help developers better manage the composition and security of the code. Our products enable software developers to catch flaws earlier in the development cycle, when they are less costly to fix.

Designing ICs involves many complex steps:steps, including, among others architecture definition, register transfer level (RTL) design, functional/RTL verification, logic design or synthesis, gate-level verification, floorplanning, place and route, and physical verification, to name just a few.verification. Designers use our EDA products to automate the IC design process, reduce errors and enable more powerful and robust designs.

Our platformssolutions comprehensively address the design process, featuring a large number of EDA products that generally fall into the following categories:

The individual products and solutions included in the Verification Continuum platform are reported in our EDA and IP and System Integration revenue categories. The solutions reported in our EDA revenueFamily include the following:

We also provide consulting and design services that address all phases of the SoC development process, as well as a broad range of expert training and workshops on our latest tools and methodologies.

Our Design IP segment includes our Design IP products, which service companies primarily in the semiconductor and System Integrationelectronics industry.

As more functionality converges into a single devicechip or even a single chip, and as chip designs grow more complex,multi-die system, the number of third-party IP blocks incorporated into designs is rapidly increasing. We provide the largest and broadest, most comprehensive portfolio of high-quality, silicon-proven IP solutions for SoCs. Our broad DesignWareSynopsys IP portfolio includes:

Our IP Accelerated initiative augments our established, broad portfolio of silicon-proven DesignWareSynopsys IP with IP Prototyping Kits and customized IP subsystems to accelerate prototyping, software development, and integration of IP into SoCs.

Our Software Integrity segment provides a comprehensive solution for building integrity—security, qualityhelps organizations align people, processes and compliance testing—into our customers’technology to intelligently address software development lifecyclerisks across their portfolio and supply chain. Theseat all stages of the application lifecycle. The testing tools, services, and programs enable our customers to manage open source license compliance and detect, prioritize, and remediate security vulnerabilities and defects across their entire software development lifecycle. Our offerings include security

and quality testing products, managed services, programs and professional services, and training.training offered as on-premises and cloud-based delivery.

Key offerings in the security, quality and compliance testingthis space include:

In our Software Integrity segment, post-contract customer support for our products includes access to our support community portal, where customers can access our product documentation, self-service training materials, customer forums and our product knowledge base. Customers can also raise support tickets, request replacement license keys and validate the terms of their active license keys through the portal. Our support community portal is

frequently updated with new and supplemental materials on a variety of topics. Customers may engage dedicated support engineers for an additional charge.

In addition, we offer training workshops designed to increase customer design proficiency and productivity with our products. Workshops cover our EDA products and methodologies used in our design and verification flows, as well as specialized modules addressing systemsystems design, logic design, physical design, simulation and testing. We offer regularly scheduled public and private courses in a variety of locations worldwide, as well as online training (live or on-demand) through our Virtual Classrooms.

We actively create and support standards that help our EDA and IP customers increase productivity, facilitate efficient design flows, improve interoperability of tools from different vendors and ensure connectivity, functionality and interoperability of IP building blocks. Standards in the electronic design industry can be established by formal accredited organizations, industry consortia, company licensing made available to all, de facto usage, or through open source licensing.

In our Design IP segment, we comply with a wide range of industry standards within our IP product family to ensure usability and interconnectivity.

Revenue from our products and Segmentsservices is categorized into four groups:

Revenue attributable to each of our four product categories (with EDA, IP & Systems Integration, and Other comprising our Semiconductor & System Design segment)groups is shown below as a percentage of our total revenue for those fiscal years.

Aggregate revenue derived from one of our customers and its subsidiaries through multiple agreements accounted for 12.4%, 12.8%11.7% and 15.4%10.6% of our total revenue in fiscal 2020, 20192023, 2022 and 2018,2021, respectively. In each such year, the revenue derived from such customer and its subsidiaries was primarily attributable to our Semiconductor & System Design segment.

We typically license our software to customers under non-exclusive license agreements that restrict use of our software to specified purposes within specified geographical areas. The majority of licenses to our EDA products are network licenses that allow a number of individual users to access the software on a defined network, including, in some cases, regional or global networks. The majority of licenses to our Software Integrity products are capacity or user licenses that allow a number of users to access the software based on a specified number of team members or specified code-bases in a defined territory. License fees depend on the type of license, product mix, and number of copies of each product licensed.

Our professional services team typically provides design consulting services to our customers under consulting agreements with statements of work specific to each project.

We primarily rely upon a combination of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws and license and non-disclosure agreements to establish and protect our proprietary rights. We have a diversified portfolio of more than 3,300 United States and foreign patents issued, and we will continue to pursue additional patents in the future. Our issued patents have expiration dates through 2040.2044 and generally have a term of twenty years from filing. Our patents primarily relate to our products and the technology used in connection with our products. Our source code is protected both as a trade secret and as an unpublished copyrighted work. However, third parties may independently develop similar technology. In addition, effective copyright and trade secret protection may be unavailable or limited in some foreign countries. While protecting our proprietary technology is important to our success, our business as a whole is not significantly dependent upon any single patent, copyright, trademark, or license.

At Synopsys,

believe this approach supports the success of the business. We leverage our strategy and our corporate governance processes to assess and manage the ESG matters that are helping address global issues such as climate change, as well as focusing on the need for social justice and equality.

We aim to influence positive social and environmental change are included inacross our Corporate Social Responsibility Report, CDP Climate Change Questionnaire, and on our website.¹

The Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee of computing increases exponentially, IoT, 5Gour Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing policies; practices; priority and machine learning applications risk driving similarly exponential energy consumptionassessments; risk management initiatives, goals and carbon emissions. This makes Synopsys’ workprogress toward goals; and public disclosures relating to enable low-power computing at the device level and in the cloud especially criticalESG matters, except to the industry’s sustainability.  At the same time, we are advancing global supply chain sustainabilityextent delegated to other committees of our Board of Directors, such as a member of the Responsible Business Alliancematters related to human capital management and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Adverse economic conditions affect demand for devices that our products help create, such as the ICs incorporated in personal computers, smartphones, automobiles and servers. Longer-term reduced demand for these or other products could result in reduced demand for design solutions and significant decreases in our average selling prices and product sales over time. Future economic downturns could also adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, if our customers or distributors build elevated inventory levels, we could experience a decrease in short-term and/or long-term demand for our products. If any of these events or disruptions were to occur, the demand for our products and services could be adversely affected along with our business, operating results and financial condition. Further, the negative impact of these events or disruptions may be deferred due to their own business and market uncertainties, the ability of our business partnersmodel.

Further economic instability could also adversely affect the banking and third-party providersfinancial services industry and result in bank failures or credit downgrades of the banks we rely on for foreign currency forward contracts, credit and banking transactions, and deposit services, or cause them to fulfilldefault on their responsibilities obligations. Additionally, the banking

and commitments,financial services industries are subject to complex laws and are heavily regulated. There is uncertainty regarding how proposed, contemplated or future changes to the laws, policies and regulations governing our industry, the banking and financial services industry and the economy could affect our business, including increased global interest rates and global inflationary pressure. A deterioration of conditions in worldwide credit markets could limit our ability to secure adequateobtain external financing to fund our operations and timely supply of equipment and materials from suppliers for our hardware products, and the ability to develop and deliver our products.capital expenditures. In addition, continued weakdifficult economic conditions may also result in impairment in valuea higher rate of losses on our tangible and intangible assets. The impactaccounts receivable due to credit defaults. Any of the COVID-19 pandemic may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risksforegoing could cause adverse effects on our business, operating results and uncertainties described in this “Risk Factors” section.

The growth of the electronic design automation (EDA)EDA industry as a whole, sales in our Semiconductor & System Design segment product sales,Automation and Design IP segments, and, to some extent, our Software Integrity segment product sales are dependent on the semiconductor and electronics industries. A substantial portion of our business and revenue depends upon the commencement of new design projects by semiconductor manufacturers, systems companies and their customers. The increasing complexity of designs of systems-on-chips, integrated circuits,SoCs, ICs, electronic systems and customers’ concerns about managing costs have previously led to, and in the future could lead to, a decrease in design starts and design activity in general, withgeneral. For example, in response to this increasing complexity, some customers focusing moremay choose to focus on one discrete phase of the design process or optingopt for less advanced, but less risky, manufacturing processes that may not require the most advanced EDA products. Demand for our products and services could decrease and our business, financial condition and operating results of operations could be adversely affected if growth in the semiconductor and electronics industries slows or stalls, including due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.increased global inflationary pressures and interest rates, a continued or worsening global supply chain disruption, geopolitical pressures or economic slowdowns or recessions. Additionally, as the EDA industry has matured, consolidation has resulted in stronger competition from companies better able to compete as sole source vendors. This increased competition may cause our revenue growth rate to decline and exert downward pressure on our operating margins, which maywould have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

Furthermore, the semiconductor and electronics industries have become increasingly complex and interconnected ecosystems. Many of our customers outsource the manufacturemanufacturing of their semiconductor designs to foundries. Our customers also frequently incorporate third-party IP, whether provided by us or other vendors, into their designs to improve the efficiency of their design process. We work closely with major foundries to ensure that our EDA, IP and

In our Semiconductor & System Design Automation segment, we compete against EDA vendors that offer a variety of products and services, such as Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Mentor Graphics Corporation (now part of Siemens AG).EDA. We also compete with other EDA vendors, including new entrants to the marketplace, that offer products focused on one or more discrete phases of the IC design process. Moreover, our customers internally develop design tools and capabilities that compete with our products, including internal designs that compete with our IP products. In the area ofour Design IP products,segment, we compete against numerous othera growing number of silicon IP providers as well as our customers’ internally developed IP.

We compete principally on the basis of technology, product quality and features (including ease-of-use), license or usage terms, post-contract customer support, interoperability among products, and price and payment terms. Specifically, we believe the following competitive factors affect our success:

If we fail to successfully manage any of these competitive factors, fail to successfully balance the conflicting demands for innovative technology and lower overall costs, or fail to address new competitive forces, our business, operating results and financial condition will be adversely affected.

Furthermore, if any of the foreign economies in which we do business deteriorate or if we fail to effectively manage our global operations, our business and operating results of operations will be harmed.

In addition to tariffs and other trade barriers, our global operations are subject to numerous U.S. and foreign laws and regulations includingsuch as those related to anti-corruption, tax, corporate governance, imports and exports, financial and other disclosures, privacy and labor relations. These laws and regulations are complex and may have differing or conflicting legal standards, making compliance difficult and costly. In addition, there is uncertainty regarding how proposed, contemplated or future changes to these complex laws and regulations could affect our business. We may incur substantial expense in complying with the new obligations to be imposed by these laws and regulations, and we may be required to make significant changes in our business operations, all of which may adversely affect our revenues and our business overall. If we violate these laws and regulations, we could be subject to fines, penalties or criminal sanctions, and may be prohibited from conducting business in one or more countries. Although we have implemented policies and procedures to help ensure compliance with these laws and regulations, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, agents or partners will not violate such laws and regulations. Any violation individually or in the aggregate could have a material adverse effect on our operations and financial condition.

Our financial results are also affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. A weakening U.S. dollar relative to other currencies increases expenses of our foreign subsidiaries when they are translated into U.S. dollars in our consolidated statements of operations.income. Likewise, a strengthening U.S. dollar relative to other currencies, including the renminbi or Yen, reduces revenue of our foreign subsidiaries upon translation and consolidation. Exchange rates are subject to significant and rapid fluctuations due to a number of factors, including interest rate changes and thereforepolitical and economic uncertainty. Therefore, we cannot predict the prospective impact of exchange rate fluctuations. Although we engage in foreign currency hedging activity, weWe may be unable to hedge all of our foreign currency risk, which could have a negative impact on our results of operations.operating results.

Our operating results are subject to quarterly and annual fluctuations, which may adversely affect our stock price. Our historical results should not be viewed as indicative of our future performance due to these periodic fluctuations.

Many factors may cause our backlog, revenue or earnings to fluctuate, including:including, among other things:

The timing of revenue recognition may also cause our revenue and earnings to fluctuate. The timing of revenue recognition is affected by factors that include:

These factors, or any other factors or risks discussed herein, could negatively impact our backlog, revenue or earnings and cause our stock price to decline. Additionally, our results may fail to meet or exceed the expectations of securities analysts and investors, or such analysts may change their recommendation regarding our stock, which could cause our stock price to decline. Our stock price has been, and may continue to be, volatile, which may make it more difficult for our stockholders to sell their shares at a time or a price that is favorable to them.

We store sensitive data, including intellectual property, our proprietary business information and that of our customers, and confidential employeepersonal information, in our data centers, and on our networks. Despitenetworks or on the cloud. In addition, our security measures,operations depend upon our information technology (IT) systems. We maintain a variety of information security policies, procedures, and infrastructurecontrols to protect our business and proprietary information, prevent data loss and other security breaches and incidents, keep our IT systems operational and reduce the impact of a security breach or incident, but these securities measures cannot provide and have not provided absolute security. In the normal course of business, our systems are and have been the target of malicious cyber attack attempts and have been and may be vulnerablesubject to attacks by hackers or breachedcompromise due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions that have and could result in unauthorized disclosure or loss of sensitive information. As aTo date, we have not identified material cyber security incidents or incurred any material expenses with any incidents. However, any breach or compromise could adversely impact our business and operations, expose us or our customers to litigation, investigations, loss of data, increase costs, or result in loss of the COVID-19 pandemiccustomer confidence and shelter-in-place orders, mostdamage to our reputation, any of which could adversely affect our employees in affected areas are working remotely, which magnifies the importance of the integrity ofbusiness and our remote access security measures.

Industry incidences of cyberattacks and product delivery system in 2015. While we identifiedother cybersecurity breaches have increased and remediated the incident, it is possible that our security measures may be circumvented again in the future, and anyare likely to continue to increase. We are using an increasing number of third-party software solutions, including cloud-based solutions, which increase potential threat vectors, such breach could harm our business and reputation. The techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to networks,as by exploitation of misconfigurations or to sabotage systems, change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target.vulnerabilities. We may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Furthermore, in the operation of our business we also use third-party vendors that provide software or hardware, have access to our network, and/or store certain sensitive data, including confidential information about our employees, and these third parties are subject to their own cybersecurity threats. While ourOur standard vendor terms and conditions include provisions requiring the use of appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our data, as well as other safeguards,safeguards. Despite these measures, there is no guarantee that a breachcompromise of our third-party vendors will not occur and in turn result in a compromise of our own IT systems or data. In addition, if we select a vendor that uses cloud storage as part of their service or product offerings, or if we are selected as a vendor for our cloud-based solutions, our proprietary information could be misappropriated by third parties despite our attempts to validate the security of such services. Many employees continue to work remotely based on a hybrid work model, which magnifies the importance of maintaining the integrity of our remote access security measures. We also periodically acquire new businesses with less mature security programs, and it takes time to align their security practices to meet our information security policies, procedures and controls.

The techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to networks or to sabotage systems of companies such as ours change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target. We may still occur.be unable to anticipate these emerging techniques, react in a timely manner, or implement adequate preventative measures, or we may not have sufficient logging available to fully investigate the incident. Our security measures vary in maturity across the business and may be and have been circumvented. For example, we have identified instances where employees have used non-approved applications for business purposes, some of which do not meet our security standards. In addition, we discovered unauthorized third-party access to our products and product license files hosted on our SolvNet Plus customer license and product delivery system in 2015. Any security breach of our own or a third-party vendor’s systems could cause us to be non-compliant with applicable laws or regulations, subject us to legal claims or proceedings, disrupt our operations, damage our reputation, and cause a loss of confidence in our products and services, any of which could adversely affect our business.business and our ability to sell our products and services.

Our software products, including our hosted solutions as well as ourand software security and quality testing solutions are also targeted by hackers and may also be vulnerablecompromised by, among other things, phishing, exploits of our code or our system configurations, malicious code (such as viruses and worms), distributed denial-of-service attacks, sophisticated

attacks conducted or sponsored by nation-states, advanced persistent threat intrusions, ransomware and other malware. We leverage many security best practices throughout the software development lifecycle, but our security development practices vary in maturity across the business and may not be effective against all cybersecurity threats. Furthermore, due to cyber attacks. An attackgeopolitical incidents, including regional military conflicts, state-supported and geopolitical-related cybersecurity incidents against companies such as ours may increase. Attacks on our products could potentially disrupt the proper functioning of our software, cause errors in the output of our customers’ work, allow unauthorized access to our or our customers’ proprietary information or cause other destructive outcomes. As a result, our reputation could suffer, customers could stop buying our products, we could face lawsuits and potential liability, and our financial performance could be negatively impacted.

We also offer software security and quality testing solutions. If we fail to identify new and increasingly sophisticated methods of cyber attacks or fail to invest sufficient resources in research and development regarding new threat vectors, our security testing products and services may fail tonot detect vulnerabilities in our customers’ software code.

Our success depends in part upon protecting our proprietary technology. Our efforts to protect our technology may be costly and unsuccessful. We rely on agreements with customers, employees and other third-partiesthird parties as well as intellectual property laws worldwide to protect our proprietary technology. These agreements may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any breach. Additionally, despite our measures to prevent piracy, other parties may attempt to illegally copy or use our products, which could result in lost revenue if their efforts are successful. Some foreign countries do not currently provide effective legal protection for intellectual property and our ability to prevent the unauthorized use of our products in those countries is therefore limited. Our trade secrets may also be stolen, otherwise become known, or be independently developed by competitors.

From time to time, we may need to commence litigation or other legal proceedings in order to:

If we do not obtain or maintain appropriate patent, copyright or trade secret protection for any reason, or cannot fully defend our intellectual property rights in certain jurisdictions, our business and operating results would be harmed. In addition, intellectual property litigation is lengthy, expensive and uncertain. Legal fees related to such litigation will increase our operating expenses and may reduce our net income.

Acquisitions and strategic investments are an important part of our growth strategy. We have completed a significant number of acquisitions in recent years. We expect to make additional acquisitions and strategic investments in the future, but we may not find suitable acquisition or investment targets, or we may not be able to consummate desired acquisitions or investments due to unfavorable credit markets, commercially unacceptable terms, failure to obtain regulatory approvals, competitive bid dynamics or other risks, which could harm our operating results.

Acquisitions and strategic investments are difficult, time-consuming, and pose a number of risks, including:including, but not limited to:

If we do not manage the foregoing risks, the acquisitionstransactions that we complete or strategic investments that weare unable to complete may have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

We depend in large part upon the services of our senior management team and key employees to drive our future success, and certain of such personnel depart our company from time to time, with the frequency and number of such departures varying widely. For example, we have recently experienced significant changes to our executive leadership team due to planned succession and other departures. The departure of key employees could result in significant disruptions to our operations, including adversely affecting the timeliness of our product releases, the successful implementation and completion of our initiatives, the adequacy of our internal control over financial reporting, and our business, operating results and financial condition.

As part of the evolution of our business, we have made substantial investments to develop new products and enhancements to existing products through our acquisitions and research and development efforts. If we are unable to anticipate technological changes in our industry by introducing new or enhanced products in a timely and cost-effective manner, or if we fail to introduce products that meet market demand, we may lose our competitive position, our products may become obsolete, and our business, operating results and financial condition or results of operations could be adversely affected.

Additionally, from time to time, we may invest in expansionefforts to expand into adjacent markets, including, for example, software security, and quality testing solutions.solutions and AI. Although we believe these solutions are complementary to our EDA tools, we have less experience and a more limited operating history in offering software quality testing and security products and services, and our efforts in this areacreating AI technology solutions such as Synopsys.ai may not be successful. Our success in these and other new markets depends on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the following:

Difficulties in any of our new product development efforts or our efforts to enter adjacent markets, including delays or disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,delays or disruptions, or export control restrictions, could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

We devote substantial resources to research and development. New competitors, technological advances in the semiconductor industry or by competitors, our acquisitions, our entry into new markets or other competitive factors may require us to invest significantly greater resources than we anticipate. If we are required to invest significantly greater resources than anticipated without a corresponding increase in revenue, our operating results could decline. If customers reduce or slow the need to upgrade or enhance their product offerings, our revenue and operating results may be adversely affected. Additionally, our periodic research and development expenses may be independent of our level of revenue, which could negatively impact our financial results. New products may not adequately address the changing needs of the marketplace. New software products may contain undetected errors, defects or vulnerabilities. The occurrence of any defects or errors in our products could result in lost or delayed market acceptance and sales of our products, delays in payment by customers, loss of customers or market share, product returns, damage to our reputation, diversion of our resources, increased service and warranty expenses or financial concessions, increased insurance costs and potential liability for damages. Finally, there can be no guarantee that our research and development investments will result in products that create additional revenue.

Software products frequently contain errors or defects, especially when first introduced, when new versions are released, or when integrated with technologies developed by acquired companies. Product errors, including those resulting from third-party suppliers, could affect the performance or interoperability of our products, could delay the development or release of new products or new versions of products and could adversely affect market acceptance or perception of our products. In addition, any allegations of manufacturability issues resulting from use of our IP products could, even if untrue, adversely affect our reputation and our customers’ willingness to license IP products from us. Any such errors or delays in releasing new products or new versions of products or allegations of unsatisfactory performance could cause us to lose customers, increase our service costs, subject us to liability for damages and divert our resources from other tasks, any one of which could materially and adversely affect our business, operating results and operating results.financial condition.

The growth in sales of our hardware products subjects us to several risks, including:including, but not limited to:

We license third-party software and other intellectual property for use in product research and development and, in several instances, for inclusion in our products. We also license third-party software, including the software of our competitors, to test the interoperability of our products with other industry products and in connection with our professional services. These licenses may need to be renegotiated or renewed from time to time, or we may need to obtain new licenses in the future. Third parties may stop adequately supporting or maintaining their technology, or they or their technology may be acquired by our competitors. If we are unable to obtain licenses to these third-party software and intellectual property on reasonable terms or at all, we may not be able to sell the affected products, our customers’ use of the products may be interrupted, or our product development processes and professional services offerings may be disrupted, which could in turn harm our financial results, our customers, and our reputation.

The inclusion of third-party intellectual property in our products can also subject us and our customers to infringement claims. Although we seek to mitigate this risk contractually, weWe may not be able to sufficiently limit our potential liability.liability contractually. Regardless of outcome, infringement claims may require us to use significant resources and may divert management’s attention.attention from the operation of our business.

Some of our products and technology, including those we acquire, may include software licensed under open source licenses. Some open source licenses could require us, under certain circumstances, to make available or grant licenses to any modifications or derivative works we create based on the open source software. Although we have tools and processes to monitor and restrict our use of open source software, theThe risks associated with open source usage may not be eliminated despite our best efforts and may, if not properly addressed, result in unanticipated obligations that harm our business.

We make assumptions, judgments and estimates for a number of items, including the fair value of financial instruments, goodwill, long-lived assets and other intangible assets, the realizability of deferred tax assets, the recognition of revenue and the fair value of stock awards. We also make assumptions, judgments and estimates in determining the accruals for employee-related liabilities, including commissions and variable compensation, and in determining the accruals for uncertain tax positions, valuation allowances on deferred tax assets, allowances for doubtful accounts,credit losses, and legal contingencies. These assumptions, judgments and estimates are drawn from historical experience and various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances as of the date of the consolidated financial statements. Actual results could differ materially from our estimates, and such differences could significantly impact our financial results. In addition, we cannot predict the full impact

As of October 31, 2023, approximately 52% of our worldwide cash and cash equivalents balance is held by our international subsidiaries. We intend to meet our U.S. cash spending needs primarily through our existing U.S. cash balances, ongoing U.S. cash flows, and available credit under our term loan and revolving credit facilities. Should our cash spending needs in greater variability in a varietythe U.S. rise and exceed these liquidity sources, we may be required to incur additional debt at higher than anticipated interest rates or access other funding sources, which could negatively affect our operating results, capital structure or the market price of areas that depend on these estimates and assumptions.our common stock.

Our operations are subject to income and transaction taxes in the United StatesU.S. and in multiple foreign jurisdictions. Because we have a wide range of statutory tax rates in the multiple jurisdictions in which we operate, any changes in our geographical earnings mix, including those resulting from our intercompany transfer pricing or from changes in the rules governing transfer pricing, could materially impact our effective tax rate. Furthermore, a change in the tax law of the jurisdictions where we do business, including an increase in tax rates, an adverse change in the treatment of an item of income or expense, or limitations on our ability to utilize tax credits, could result in a material increase in our tax expense and impact our financial position and cash flows. For example, in response to the fiscal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of California enacted legislation on June 29, 2020 that would suspend the use of certain corporate research and development tax credits for a three-year period beginning in our fiscal 2021, which could result in an impact in our tax expense.

On October 8, 2021, the OrganisationOrganization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), announced the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (Framework) which representsagreed to a coalitiontwo-pillar solution to address tax challenges arising from digitalization of memberthe economy. On December 20, 2021, the OECD released Pillar Two Model Rules (Pillar Two) defining the global minimum tax rules, which contemplate a 15% minimum tax rate. The OECD continues to release additional guidance, including Administrative Guidance on how the Pillar Two rules should be interpreted and applied and many countries including the United States.are passing legislation to comply with Pillar Two. The Programme of Work is evaluating potential changesFramework calls for law enactment by OECD and G20 members to numerous long-standing tax principles.take effect in 2024 and 2025. These changes, ifwhen enacted by various countries in which we do business, may increase our taxes in these countries. Changes to these and other areas in relation to international tax reform, including future actions taken by foreign governments in response to the Tax Act, could increase uncertainty and may adversely affect our tax rate and cash flow in future years.

Our income and non-income tax filings are subject to review or audit by the Internal Revenue Service and state, local and foreign taxing authorities. We exercise significant judgment in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and, in the ordinary course of our business, there may be transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. We may also be liable for potential tax liabilities of businesses we acquire, including future taxes payable related to the transition tax on earnings from their foreign operations, if any, under the Tax Act. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, theacquire. The final determination in an audit may be materially different than the treatment reflected in our historical income tax provisions and accruals. An assessment of additional taxes because of an audit could adversely affect our income tax provision and net income in the periods for which that determination is made.

We maintain significant deferred tax assets related to certain tax credits.credits and capitalized research and development expenditures. Our ability to use these creditsdeferred tax assets is dependent upon having sufficient future taxable income in the relevant jurisdiction and in the case of foreign tax credits, how such credits are treated under provisions of the Tax Act.current and potential future tax law. Changes to tax laws and regulations, and changes in our forecasts of future income could result in an adjustment to the deferred tax asset and a related charge to earnings that could materially affect our financial results.

We prepare our consolidated financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP. These principles are subject to interpretation by the FASB, the SEC and various bodies formed to interpret and create appropriate accounting principles and guidance. The FASB periodically issues new accounting standards on a variety of topics, including, for example, revenue recognition and accounting for leases. These and other such standards generally result in different accounting principles, which may significantly impact our reported results or could result in variability of our financial results.

Regardless of how well designed and operated it is, a control system can provide only reasonable assurance that its objectives will be met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent

limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. Moreover, although we have implementedOur compliance programs and compliance training for employees such measures may not prevent our employees, contractors or agents from breaching or circumventing our policies or violating applicable laws and regulations. Failure of our control systems and compliance programs to prevent error, fraud or violations of law could have a material adverse impact on our business.

From time to time, our cash equivalent and short-term investment portfolio consists of investment-grade U.S. government agency securities, asset-backed securities, corporate debt securities, commercial paper, certificates of deposit, money market funds, municipal securities and other securities and bank deposits. Our investment portfolio carries both interest rate risk and credit risk and may be negatively impacted by thedeteriorating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.conditions, increased global inflationary pressures and interest rates and bank failures. Fixed rate debt securities may have their market value adversely impacted due to a credit downgrade or a rise in interest rates, while floating rate securities may produce less income than expected if interest rates fall or a credit downgrade occurs. As a result of capital pressures on certain banks, especially in Europe, and the continuing low interest rate environment, some of our financial instruments may become impaired.

Our future investment income may fall short of expectations due to changes in interest rates or if the decline in fair value of investments held by us is judged to be other-than-temporary. In addition, we may suffer losses in principal if we are forced to sell securities that decline in market value due to changes in the issuer’s credit quality or changes in interest rates.

Due to the global nature of our business, our operating results may be negatively impacted by catastrophic events and the effects of climate change, pandemics, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, or other unexpected events throughout the world. We rely on a global network of infrastructure applications, enterprise applications and technology systems for our development, marketing, operational, support and sales activities. A disruption or failure of these systems in the event of a major earthquake, fire, extreme temperatures, drought, flood, telecommunications failure, cybersecurity attack, terrorist attack, epidemic or pandemic, (including the COVID-19 pandemic), or other catastrophic eventevents or climate change-related events could cause system interruptions, delays in our product development and loss of critical data and could prevent us from fulfilling our customers’ orders. In particular, our sales and infrastructure are vulnerable to regional or worldwide health conditions, including the effects of the outbreak of contagious diseases, such as the government-imposed restrictions that curtailed global economic activity and caused substantial volatility in global financial markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, our corporate headquarters, a significant portion of our research and development activities, our data centers, and certain other critical business operations are located in California, near major earthquake faults.faults and sites of recent wildfires, which may become more frequent, along with other extreme weather events, due to climate change. A catastrophic event or other extreme weather event that results in the destruction or disruption of our data centers or our critical business or information technologyIT systems would severely affect our ability to conduct normal business operations and, as a result, our operating results would be adversely affected.