UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

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FORM 10-K

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Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No  o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  o    No  x

The number of shares of the Registrant's common stock outstanding as of February 27, 2015January 31, 2016 was 33,915,12134,432,373 shares.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant's Proxy Statement for its 20152016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are incorporated by reference in Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K where indicated. Such proxy statement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days of the registrant's fiscal year ended December 31, 2014.2015.

Qualys, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

IT infrastructures are more complex and globally-distributed today than ever before, as organizations of all sizes increasingly rely upon a myriad of interconnected information systems and related IT assets, such as servers, databases, web applications, routers, switches, desktops, laptops, other physical and virtual infrastructure, and numerous external networks and cloud services. In this environment, new and evolving technologies intended to improve organizations’ operations can also increase vulnerability to cyber attacks, which can expose sensitive data, damage IT and physical infrastructures, and result in serious financial or reputational consequences. In addition, the rapidly increasing amount of data and devices in IT environments makes it more difficult to identify and remediate vulnerabilities in a timely manner. The predominant approach to IT security has been to implement multiple disparate security products that can be costly and difficult to deploy, integrate and manage and may not adequately protect organizations. As a result, we believe there is a large and growing opportunity for comprehensive cloudcloud-based security and compliance solutions.

We designed our QualysGuardQualys Cloud Platform to transform the way organizations secure and protect their IT infrastructures and applications. Our cloud platform offers an integrated suite of solutions that automates the lifecycle of asset discovery, security assessments, and compliance management for an organization’s IT infrastructure and assets, whether they reside inside the organization, on their network perimeter or in the cloud. Since inception, our solutions have been designed to be delivered through the cloud and to be easily and rapidly deployed on a global scale across a broad range of industries, enabling faster implementation and lower total cost of ownership than traditional on-premise enterprise software products. Our customers, ranging from some of the largest organizations to small businesses, are served from our globally-distributed cloud platform, enabling us to rapidly deliver new solutions, enhancements and security updates.

We provide our solutions through a software-as-a-service model, primarily with renewable annual subscriptions. These subscriptions require customers to pay a fee in order to access our cloud solutions. We invoice our customers for the entire subscription amount at the start of the subscription term, and the invoiced

Our QualysGuardQualys Cloud Platform is currently used by over 7,7008,800 organizations in more than 100 countries, including a majority of each of the Forbes Global 100 and Fortune 100. Our revenues increased from $91.4 million in 2012 to $108.0 million in 2013 and reachedto $133.6 million in 2014.2014, and reached $164.3 million in 2015. We generated net income of $2.2 million in 2012, $1.5 million in 2013, and $30.2 million in 2014.2014, and $15.9 million in 2015. Net income in 2014 includes a tax benefit of $23.7 million for recognition of our U.S. federal and certain state deferred tax assets. Total assets as of December 31, 2015 and 2014 and 2013 were $260.0$323.5 million and $192.6$260.0 million, respectively.

Our Growth Strategy

Our Platform

Our suite of solutions provides security intelligence by automating the life cycle of IT asset discovery, security assessment and compliance management. Our core services layer provides a set of advanced shared technologies that are leveraged by our suite of security and compliance solutions, which we refer to as our Core Services.

Built on our cloud platform infrastructure, our Core Services provide an integrated framework with proprietary functionalities that act as building blocks to enable efficient and scalable delivery of our customer-facing cloud

The Core Services and infrastructure layers of our cloud platform deliver benefits to our entire suite of security and compliance solutions, including:

We also provide open application program interfaces, or APIs, and other developer tools that allow third parties to embed our technology into their solutions and build applications on our cloud platform.

Our cloud platform is delivered to customers via our shared platform offering from our global data centers or via our private platform offering (QualysGuard(Qualys Private Cloud Platform, or PCP), for customers or partners that want the platform to reside within the customer's on-premise data center. The PCP is a standalone version of our multi-layer, multi-tenant services architecture and is a fully integrated turnkey solution, making it more scalable, cost effective and faster to deploy within a customer's on-premise data center. Solutions delivered through our PCP are typically on the same subscription basis as solutions delivered through our shared platform. Our PCP utilizes hardware and software owned by us and physically located on the customer's premises. The customer is not permitted to take possession of the software or access the software code. Our PCP provides our subscription-based platform services to the customer using a virtual version of our software. This virtualized PCP allows us to extend our security and compliance solutions without the complexity and cost associated with deploying traditional enterprise software.

Our customers can subscribe to one or more of our security and compliance solutions based on their initial needs and expand their subscriptions over time to new areas within their organization or to additional QualysGuardQualys solutions. We offer three editions of our QualysGuardQualys Cloud Suite, the Enterprise edition for large and medium-sized enterprises, the Express edition for medium-sized businesses, and Express Lite for small-sized businesses. QualysGuardQualys Cloud Suite solutions are described below.

Our Customers

Our global sales force is organized into a field sales team, which focuses on enterprises, generally including organizations with more than 5,000 employees, and an inside sales team, which focuses on small to medium businesses, which generally include organizations with less than 5,000 employees. Both our field and inside sales teams are divided into three geographic regions, including the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific. We also further segment each of our sales teams into groups that focus on adding new customers or expandingmanaging relationships with existing customers.

Our channel partners maintain relationships with their customers throughout the territories in which they operate and provide their customers with services and third-party solutions to help meet those customers’ evolving security and compliance requirements. As such, these partners offer our IT security and compliance solutions in conjunction with one or more of their own products or services and act as a conduit through which we can connect with these prospective customers to offer our solutions. Our channel partners include security consulting organizations, managed service providers and resellers, such as Accuvant, FishNet Security, Inc., Dell Inc., Fujitsu, Insight Technologies, Inc., Optiv, and Verizon Communications Inc.

We have a number of marketing initiatives to build awareness and encourage customer adoption of our solutions. We offer free trials and services to allow prospective customers to experience the quality of our solutions, to learn in detail about the features and functionality of our cloud platform, and to quantify the potential benefits of our solutions.

Customer Support

Research and Development and Operations

Our development team works closely with our customers and partners to gain valuable insights into their environments and gather feedback for threat research, product development and innovations. We typically release updates to our solutions, including enhancements and new features multiple times a year, and we measure the quality of our scan results on a frequent basis in an effort to maintain the highest level of scan accuracy.

The modular architecture of our cloud platform enables our engineering teams to simultaneously work on different features, accelerating the delivery of new functionalities to customers. Our research and development team also works collaboratively with our technical support team to ensure customer satisfaction and with our sales team to accelerate the adoption of our solutions.

Competition

We compete with large public companies, such as Barracuda Networks, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Imperva, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, McAfee,Rapid7, Inc. (a subsidiary of Intel Corporation) and Symantec Corporation, as well as

We believe that the principal competitive factors affecting the market for cloudcloud-based security and compliance solutions include product functionality, breadth of offerings, flexibility of delivery models, ease of deployment and use, total cost of ownership, scalability and performance, customer support and extensibility of platform. We believe that our suite of solutions generally competes favorably with respect to these factors. However, many of our primary competitors have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships, larger marketing budgets and significantly greater resources than we do.

Intellectual Property

Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and our intellectual property rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or obtain and use our technology to develop products with the same functionality as our solution. Policing unauthorized use of our technology and intellectual property rights is difficult.

We expect that software and other solutions in our industry may be subject to third-party infringement claims as the number of competitors grows and the functionality of products in different industry segments overlaps. Any of these third parties might make a claim of infringement against us at any time.

Employees

Available Information

Geographic Information

Our success depends to a significant extent on the willingness of organizations to increase their use of cloud solutions for their IT security and compliance. However, the market for cloud solutions for IT security and compliance is at an early stage relative to on-premise solutions, and as such, it is difficult to predict important market trends, including the potential growth, if any, of the market for cloud security and compliance solutions. To date, some organizations have been reluctant to use cloud solutions because they have concerns regarding the risks associated with the reliability or security of the technology delivery model associated with these solutions. If other cloud service providers experience security incidents, loss of customer data, disruptions in service delivery or other problems, the market for cloud solutions as a whole, including our solutions, may be negatively impacted. Moreover, many organizations have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate on-premise software into their businesses, and as a result may be reluctant or unwilling to migrate to a cloud solution. Organizations that use on-premise security products, such as network firewalls, security information and event management products or data loss prevention solutions, may also believe that these products sufficiently protect their IT infrastructure and deliver adequate security. Therefore, they may continue spending their IT security budgets on these products and may not adopt our security and compliance solutions in addition to or as a replacement for such products.

If the market for cloud solutions for IT security and compliance does not evolve in the way we anticipate or if customers do not recognize the benefits of our cloud solutions over traditional on-premise enterprise software products, and as a result we are unable to increase sales of subscriptions to our solutions, then our revenues may not grow or may decline, and our operating results would be harmed.

The IT security and compliance market is characterized by rapid technological advances, customer price sensitivity, short product and service life cycles, intense competition, changes in customer requirements, frequent new product introductions and enhancements and evolving industry standards and regulatory mandates. Any of these factors could create downward pressure on pricing and gross margins, and could adversely affect our renewal rates, as well as our ability to attract new customers. Our future success will depend on our ability to enhance existing solutions, introduce new solutions on a timely and cost-effective basis, meet changing customer needs, extend our core technology into new applications, and anticipate and respond to emerging standards and business models. We must also continually change and improve our solutions in response to changes in operating systems, application software, computer and communications hardware, networking software, data center architectures, programming tools and computer language technology.

We may not be able to anticipate future market needs and opportunities or develop enhancements or new solutions to meet such needs or opportunities in a timely manner or at all. The market for cloud solutions for IT security and compliance is relatively new, and it is uncertain whether our new solutions will gain market acceptance.

Our solution enhancements or new solutions could fail to attain sufficient market acceptance for many reasons, including:

Furthermore, diversifying our solutions and expanding into new IT security and compliance markets will require significant investment and planning, require that our research and development and sales and marketing organizations develop expertise in these new markets, bring us more directly into competition with security and compliance providers that may be better established or have greater resources than we do, require additional investment of time and resources in the development and training of our channel partners and entail significant risk of failure.

If we fail to anticipate market requirements or fail to develop and introduce solution enhancements or new solutions to satisfy those requirements in a timely manner, such failure could substantially decrease or delay market acceptance and sales of our present and future solutions and cause us to lose existing customers or fail to gain new customers, which would significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our future growth is dependentdepends upon our ability to continue to meet the expanding needs of our customers as their use of our cloud platform grows. As these customers gain more experience with our solutions, the number of users and the number of locations where our solutions are being accessed may expand rapidly in the future. In order to ensure that we meet the performance and other requirements of our customers, we intend to continue to

make significant investments to develop and implement new proprietary and third-party technologies at all levels of our cloud platform. These technologies, which include databases, applications and server optimizations, and network and hosting strategies, are often complex, new and unproven. We may not be successful in developing or implementing these technologies. To the extent that we do not effectively scale our platform to maintain performance as our customers expand their use of our platform, our operating results and our business may be harmed.

We and our service providers could be a target of cyber attacks or other malfeasance designed to impede the performance of our solutions, penetrate our network security or the security of our cloud platform or our internal systems, misappropriate proprietary information and/or cause interruptions to our services. Our solutions, platforms, and system may also suffer security incidents as a result of non-technical issues, including intentional or inadvertent breaches by our employees or service providers. Because our operations involve providing IT security solutions to our customers, we may be targeted for cyber attacks and other security incidents. If an actual or perceived breach of our security measures or those of our service providers occurs, it could adversely affect the market perception of our solutions, negatively affecting our reputation, and may expose us to the loss of information, litigation, regulatory actions and possible liability. Any such actual or perceived security breach could also divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel. In addition, any such actual or perceived security breach could impair our ability to operate our business and provide solutions to our customers. If this happens, our reputation could be harmed, our revenues could decline and our business could suffer.

We offer our QualysGuardQualys Cloud Platform and integrated suite of solutions pursuant to a software-as-a-service model, and our customers purchase subscriptions from us that are generally one year in length. Our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions after their subscription period expires, and they may not renew their subscriptions at the same or higher levels or at all. As a result, our ability to grow depends in part on customers renewing their existing subscriptions and purchasing additional subscriptions and solutions. Our customers may choose not to renew their subscriptions to our solutions or purchase additional solutions due to a number of factors, including their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our solutions, the prices of our solutions, the prices of products or services offered by our competitors, reductions in our customers’ spending levels due to the macroeconomic environment or other factors. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions to our solutions, renew on less favorable terms, or do not purchase additional solutions or subscriptions, our revenues may grow more slowly than expected or decline and our results of operations may be harmed.

We believe that our future growth depends in part upon increasing our customer base. Our ability to achieve significant growth in revenues in the future will depend, in large part, upon continually attracting new customers and obtaining subscription renewals to our solutions from those customers. If we fail to attract new customers our revenues may grow more slowly than expected and our business may be harmed.

We will need to increase the revenues that we derive from our current and future solutions other than QualysGuardQualys Vulnerability Management for our business and revenues to grow as we expect. Revenues from our other solutions, including our Web Application Scanning, Policy Compliance, PCI Compliance, Malware Detection Service, and Qualys SECURE Seal, have been relatively modest compared to revenues from our QualysGuardQualys Vulnerability Management solution. Our future success depends in part on our ability to sell subscriptions to these additional solutions to existing and new customers. This may require more costly sales and marketing efforts and may not result in additional sales. If our efforts to sell subscriptions to additional solutions to existing and new customers are not successful, our business may suffer.

We currently host substantially all of our solutions from four third-party data centers located in the United States, Switzerland and Switzerland.the Netherlands. These facilities are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, cybersecurity attacks, terrorist attacks, employee negligence, power losses, telecommunications failures and similar events. The facilities also could be subject to break-ins, sabotage, intentional acts of vandalism and other misconduct. The occurrence of a natural disaster, an act of terrorism or misconduct, a decision to close the facilities without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems could result in interruptions in our services.

Our data centers are not currently redundant and we cannot rapidly move customers from one data center to another, which may increase delays in the restoration of our service for our customers if an adverse event occurs. We have added data center facilities to provide additional capacity for our cloud platform and to enable disaster recovery. We continue to build out these facilities and expect to add additional data centers throughout 2015. However,facilities; however, these additional facilities may not be operational in the anticipated time-frame and we may incur unplanned expenses.

Additionally, our existing data center facilities providers have no obligations to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew our agreements with the facilities providers on commercially reasonable terms or if in the future we add additional data center facility providers, we may experience costs or downtime in connection with the loss of an existing facility or the transfer to, or addition of, new data center facilities.

Any disruptions or other performance problems with our solutions could harm our reputation and business and may damage our customers’ businesses. Interruptions in our service delivery might reduce our revenues, cause us

to issue credits to customers, subject us to potential liability and cause customers to terminate their subscriptions or not renew their subscriptions.

We have a limited operating history, particularly in certain markets and solution offerings, and we believe that we need to continue to develop market awareness in the IT security and compliance market. Market awareness of our capabilities and solutions is essential to our continued growth and success in all of our markets, particularly for the large enterprise, service provider and government markets. If our marketing programs are not successful in creating market awareness of our company and our full suite of solutions, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected, and we may not be able to achieve our expected growth.

We generate a portion of our revenues from solutions that help organizations achieve and maintain compliance with regulations and industry standards. For example, many of our customers subscribe to our security and compliance solutions to help them comply with the security standards developed and maintained by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, or the PCI Council, which apply to companies that store cardholder data. Industry organizations like the PCI Council may significantly change their security standards with little or no notice, including changes that could make their standards more or less onerous for businesses. Governments may also adopt new laws or regulations, or make changes to existing laws or regulations, that could impact the demand for or value of our solutions.

If we are unable to adapt our solutions to changing regulatory standards in a timely manner, or if our solutions fail to assist with or expedite our customers’ compliance initiatives, our customers may lose confidence in our solutions and could switch to products offered by our competitors. In addition, if regulations and standards related to data security, vulnerability management and other IT security and compliance requirements are relaxed or the penalties for non-compliance are changed in a manner that makes them less onerous, our customers may view government and industry regulatory compliance as less critical to their businesses, and our customers may be less willing to purchase our solutions. In any of these cases, our revenues and operating results could be harmed.

If our solutions fail to detect vulnerabilities in our customers’ IT infrastructures, or if our solutions fail to identify and respond to new and increasingly complex methods of attacks, our business and reputation may suffer. There is no guarantee that our solutions will detect all vulnerabilities. Additionally, our security and compliance solutions may falsely detect vulnerabilities or threats that do not actually exist. For example, some of our solutions rely on information on attack sources aggregated from third-party data providers who monitor global malicious activity originating from a variety of sources, including anonymous proxies, specific IP addresses, botnets and phishing sites. If the information from these data providers is inaccurate, the potential for false indications of security vulnerabilities increases. These false positives, while typical in the industry, may impair the perceived reliability or usability of our solutions and may therefore adversely impact market acceptance of our solutions and could result in negative publicity, loss of customers and sales, increased costs to remedy any incorrect information or problem, or claims by aggrieved parties. Similar issues may be generated by the misuse of our tools to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.

In addition, our solutions do not currently extend to cover mobile devices or personal devices that employees may bring into an organization. As such, our solutions would not identify or address vulnerabilities in mobile devices, such as mobile phones or tablets, or personal devices, and our customers’ IT infrastructures may be compromised by attacks that infiltrate their networks through such devices.

An actual or perceived security breach or theft of the sensitive data of one of our customers, regardless of whether the breach is attributable to the failure of our solutions, could adversely affect the market’s perception of our security solutions.

Our solutions are deployed in a wide variety of IT environments, including large-scale, complex infrastructures. If our customers are unable to implement our solutions successfully, customer perceptions of our platform may be impaired or our reputation and brand may suffer. Our customers have in the past inadvertently misused our solutions, which triggered downtime in their internal infrastructure until the problem was resolved. Any misuse of our solutions could result in customer dissatisfaction, impact the perceived reliability of our solutions, result in negative press coverage, negatively affect our reputation and harm our financial results.

Our solutions may contain undetected errors or defects when first introduced or as new versions are released. We have experienced these errors or defects in the past in connection with new solutions and solution upgrades and we expect that these errors or defects will be found from time to time in the future in new or enhanced solutions after commercial release of these solutions. Since our customers use our solutions for security and compliance reasons, any errors, defects, disruptions in service or other performance problems with our solutions may damage our customers’ business and could hurt our reputation. If that occurs, we may incur significant costs, the attention of our key personnel could be diverted, our customers may delay or withhold payment to us or elect not to renew, or other significant customer relations problems may arise. We may also be subject to liability claims for damages related to errors or defects in our solutions. A material liability claim or other occurrence that harms our reputation or decreases market acceptance of our solutions may harm our business and operating results.

We collect the names and email addresses of our customers in connection with subscriptions to our solutions. Additionally, the data that our solutions collect to help secure and protect the IT infrastructure of our customers may include additional personal or confidential information of our customers’ employees and their customers. Personal privacy has become a significant issue in the United States and in many other countries where we offer our solutions. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently evolving and is likely to remain

uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information. In the United States, these include, for example, rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or GLB, and state breach notification laws. Internationally, virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established its own data security and privacy legal framework with which we or our customers must comply, including the Data Protection Directive established in the European Union and the Federal Data Protection Act passed in Germany.

In addition to laws and regulations, privacy advocacy and industry groups or other private parties may propose new and different privacy standards that either legally or contractually apply to us. Because the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection laws, regulations, standards and contractual obligations are uncertain, it is possible that they may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is, or perceived to be, inconsistent with our data management practices or the features of our solutions. If so, in addition to the possibility of regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, fines, lawsuits and other claims, other forms of injunctive or operations-limiting relief, and damage to our reputations and loss of goodwill, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our solutions and may face limitations in our ability to develop new solutions and features, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy concerns, even if unfounded, or any actual or perceived inability to comply with applicable privacy or data protection laws, regulations and privacy standards, could result in cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales of subscriptions and harm our business.

Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, and privacy standards that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our solutions. Privacy concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our solutions particularly in certain industries and foreign countries.

We market and sell subscriptions to our solutions throughout the world and have personnel in many parts of the world. In addition, we have sales offices and research and development facilities outside the United States and we conduct, and expect to continue to conduct, a significant amount of our business with organizations that are located outside the United States, particularly in Europe and Asia. Therefore, we are subject to risks associated with having international sales and worldwide operations, including:

Our business, including the sales of subscriptions of our solutions, may be subject to foreign governmental regulations, which vary substantially from country to country and change from time to time. Failure to comply with these regulations could adversely affect our business. Further, in many foreign countries it is common for others to engage in business practices that are prohibited by our internal policies and procedures or U.S. regulations applicable to us. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these laws and policies, there can be no assurance that all of our employees, contractors, channel partners and agents have complied or will comply with these laws and policies. Violations of laws or key control policies by our employees, contractors, channel partners or agents could result in delays in revenue recognition, financial reporting misstatements, fines, penalties or the prohibition of the importation or exportation of our solutions and could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. If we are unable to successfully manage the challenges of international operations, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

In addition, approximately 39%44% of our employees are located outside of the United States, with a significant number of these employees located in Pune, India. Accordingly, we are exposed to changes in laws governing our employee relationships in various U.S. and foreign jurisdictions, including laws and regulations regarding wage and hour requirements, fair labor standards, employee data privacy, unemployment tax rates, workers’ compensation rates, citizenship requirements and payroll and other taxes which may have a direct impact on our operating costs. We may continue to expand our international operations and international sales and marketing activities. Expansion in international markets has required, and will continue to require, significant management attention and resources. We may be unable to scale our infrastructure effectively or as quickly as our competitors in these markets and our revenues may not increase to offset any increased costs and operating expenses, which would cause our results to suffer.

The introduction of products and services embodying new technologies could render our existing solutions obsolete or less attractive to customers. Our business could be harmed if new security and compliance technologies are widely adopted. We may not be able to successfully anticipate or adapt to changing technology or customer requirements on a timely basis, or at all. If we fail to keep up with technological changes or to convince

our customers and potential customers of the value of our solutions even in light of new technologies, our business could be harmed and our revenues may decline.

Our failure to improve our systems and processes, or their failure to operate in the intended manner, may result in our inability to manage the growth of our business and to accurately forecast our revenues, expenses and earnings, or to prevent certain losses. In addition, as we continue to grow, our productivity and the quality of our solutions may also be adversely affected if we do not integrate and train our new employees quickly and effectively. Any future growth would add complexity to our organization and require effective coordination across our organization. Failure to manage any future growth effectively could result in increased costs, harm our results of operations and lead to investors losing confidence in our internal systems and processes.

Growth forecasts relating to the expected growth in the market for IT security and compliance and other markets are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates which may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these markets experience the forecasted growth, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many factors, including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forecasts of market growth should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.

The timing of sales of subscriptions for our solutions is difficult to forecast because of the length and unpredictability of our sales cycle, particularly with large enterprises. We sell subscriptions to our security and compliance solutions primarily to IT departments that are managing a growing set of user and compliance demands, which has increased the complexity of customer requirements to be met and confirmed during the sales cycle and prolonged our sales cycle. Further, the length of time that potential customers devote to their testing and evaluation, contract negotiation and budgeting processes varies significantly, which has also made our sales cycle

sell our solutions, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, then our ability to grow our business and sell our solutions may be adversely affected. In addition, the loss of one or more of our larger channel partners, who may cease marketing our solutions with limited or no notice, and our possible inability to replace them, could adversely affect our sales. Moreover, our ability to expand our distribution channels depends in part on our ability to educate our channel partners about our solutions, which can be complex. Our failure to recruit additional channel partners, or any reduction or delay in their sales of our solutions or conflicts between channel sales and our direct sales and marketing activities may harm our results of operations. Even if we are successful, these relationships may not result in greater customer usage of our solutions or increased revenues.

We rely on software-as-a-service vendors to operate certain functionsIn addition, the financial health of our business and any failure of such vendors to provide services to us could adversely impact our business and operations.

Our solutions contain software licensed to us by third-parties under so-called “open source” licenses, including the GNU General Public License, or GPL, the GNU Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, the BSD License, the Apache License and others. From time to time, there have been claims against companies that distribute or use open source software in their products and services, asserting that such open source software infringes the claimants’ intellectual property rights. We could be subject to suits by parties claiming that what we believe to be licensed open source software infringes their intellectual property rights. Use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. In addition, certain open source licenses require that source code for software programs that are subject to the license be made available to the public and that any modifications or derivative works to such open source software continue to be licensed under the same terms. If we combine our proprietary software with open source software in certain ways, we could, in some circumstances, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public. Disclosing the source code of our proprietary software could make it easier for cyber attackers and other third parties to discover vulnerabilities in or to defeat the protections of our solutions, which could result in our solutions failing to provide our customers with the security they expect from our services. This could harm our business and reputation. Disclosing our proprietary source code also could allow our competitors to create similar products with lower development effort and time and ultimately could result in a loss of sales for us. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Upon customer request, we provide physical or virtual scanner appliances on a subscription basis as an additional capability to the customer’s subscription for use during their subscription term. Our physical scanner appliances are built by a single manufacturer. Our reliance on a sole manufacturer involves several risks, including a potential inability to obtain an adequate supply of physical scanner appliances and limited control over pricing, quality and timely deployment of such scanner appliances. In addition, replacing this manufacturer may be difficult and could result in an inability or delay in deploying our solutions to customers that request physical scanner appliances as part of their subscriptions.

Furthermore, our manufacturer’s ability to timely manufacture and ship our physical scanner appliances depends on a variety of factors, such as the availability of hardware components, supply shortages or contractual restrictions. In the event of an interruption from this manufacturer, we may not be able to develop alternate or secondary sources in a timely manner. If we are unable to purchase physical scanner appliances in quantities sufficient to meet our requirements on a timely basis, we may not be able to effectively deploy our solutions to new customers that request physical scanner appliances, which could harm our business.

We use forward foreign exchange contracts to mitigate the effect of changes in foreign exchange rates on cash and accounts receivable balances denominated in certain foreign currencies. However, we may not be able to purchase derivative instruments that are adequate to insulate ourselves from foreign currency exchange risks. Additionally, our hedging activities may contribute to increased losses as a result of volatility in foreign currency markets.

The success of our business depends in part on our ability to protect and enforce our trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, patents and other intellectual property rights. We attempt to protect our intellectual property under copyright, trade secret, patent and trademark laws, and through a combination of confidentiality procedures, contractual provisions and other methods, all of which offer only limited protection.

We primarily rely on our unpatented proprietary technology and trade secrets. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and trade secrets, unauthorized parties may attempt to misappropriate, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use them. The contractual provisions that we enter into with employees, consultants, partners, vendors and customers may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights. Moreover, policing unauthorized use of our technologies, solutions and intellectual property is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak. We may be unable to determine the extent of any unauthorized use or infringement of our solutions, technologies or intellectual property rights.

From time to time, legal action by us may be necessary to enforce our patents and other intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets, to determine the validity and scope of the intellectual property rights of others or to defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and could negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition. If we are unable to

protect our intellectual property rights, we may find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage to others who need not incur the additional expense, time and effort required to create the innovative solutions that have enabled us to be successful to date.

Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in our industry. Some companies, including some of our competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks, which they may use to assert claims against us. Third parties may in the future assert claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights against us. They may also assert such claims against our customers or channel partners whom we typically indemnify against claims that our solutions infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the

The patent portfolios of our most significant competitors are larger than ours. This disparity may increase the risk that they may sue us for patent infringement and may limit our ability to counterclaim for patent infringement or settle through patent cross-licenses. In addition, future assertions of patent rights by third parties, and any resulting litigation, may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant product revenues and against whom our own patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence or protection. There can

be no assurance that we will not be found to infringe or otherwise violate any third-party intellectual property rights or to have done so in the past.

An adverse outcome of a dispute may require us to:

In addition, royalty or licensing agreements, if required or desirable, may be unavailable on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and may require significant royalty payments and other expenditures. Some licenses may also be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology licensed to us. Any of the foregoing events could seriously harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our future performance depends on the continued services and continuing contributions of our senior management, particularly Philippe F. Courtot, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and other key employees to execute on our business plan and to identify and pursue new opportunities and product innovations. We do not maintain key-man insurance for Mr. Courtot or for any other member of our senior management team. From time to time, there may be changes in our senior management team resulting from the termination or

Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled personnel. The loss of the services of any of our key personnel, the inability to attract or retain qualified personnel or delays in hiring required personnel, particularly in engineering and sales, may seriously harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any of our employees may terminate their employment at any time. Competition for highly skilled personnel is frequently intense, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the locations in

which we have a substantial presence and need for highly skilled personnel and we may not be able to compete for these employees.

We are required under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“U.S. GAAP”) to recognize compensation expense in our operating results for employee stock-based compensation under our equity grant programs, which may negatively impact our operating results and may increase the pressure to limit stock-based compensation that we might otherwise offer to current or potential employees. In addition, to the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or divulged proprietary or other confidential information.

We deliver our solutions through the Internet. Federal, state or foreign government bodies or agencies have in the past adopted, and may in the future adopt, laws or regulations affecting data privacy and the use of the Internet. In addition, government agencies or private organizations may begin to impose taxes, fees or other charges for accessing the Internet or on commerce conducted via the Internet. These laws or charges could limit the viability of Internet-based solutions such as ours and reduce the demand for our solutions.

Government entities have historically been particularly concerned about adopting cloud-based solutions for their operations, including security solutions, and increasing sales of subscriptions for our solutions to government entities may be more challenging than selling to commercial organizations. Selling to government entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that we will win a sale. We have invested in the creation of a cloud offering certified under the Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA, for government usage but we cannot be sure that we will continue to sustain or renew this certification, that the government will continue to mandate such certification or that other

government agencies or entities will use this cloud offering. Government demand and payment for our solutions may be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our solutions. Government entities may have contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with our channel partners for convenience or due to a default, and any such termination may adversely impact our future results of operations. Governments routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government refusing to continue buying our solutions, a reduction of revenues or fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit uncovers improper or illegal activities. Any such penalties could adversely impact our results of operations in a material way.

operations and decreased revenues. If we fail to comply with export and import regulations, we may be fined or other penalties could be imposed, including a denial of certain export privileges.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled “Part II, Item 7 - Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenues and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to revenue recognition, accounting for income taxes, stock-based compensation, common stock valuations and fair value measurement.

We expense commissions paid to our sales personnel in the quarter in which the related order is received. In contrast, we generally recognize the revenues associated with a sale of our solutions ratably over the term of the subscription, which is typically one year. Although we believe increased sales is a positive indicator of the long-term health of our business, increased sales would increase our operating expenses and decrease net income in any

particular period. Thus, we may report poor operating results due to higher sales commissions in a period in which we experience strong sales of our solutions. Alternatively, we may report better operating results due to the reduction of sales commissions in a period in which we experience a slowdown in sales. Therefore, you should not rely on our operating results during any one quarter as an indication of our financial health and future performance.

We recognize revenues from subscriptions over the term of the relevant service period, which is typically one year. As a result, most of our reported revenues in each quarter are derived from the recognition of deferred revenues relating to subscriptions entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a shortfall in demand for our solutions in any period may not significantly reduce our revenues for that period, but could negatively affect revenues in future periods. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in bookings may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. We may be unable to adjust our costs and expenses to compensate for such a potential shortfall in revenues. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenues through additional bookings in any period, as revenues are recognized ratably over the subscription period.

A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire or a flood, or a significant power outage could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. Our corporate headquarters and a significant portion of our operations are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity. In addition, natural disasters could affect our business partners’ ability to perform services for us on a timely basis. In the event we or our business partners are hindered by any of the events discussed above, our ability to provide our solutions to customers could be delayed, resulting in our missing financial targets, such as revenues and net income, for a particular quarter. Further, if a natural disaster occurs in a region from which we derive a significant portion of our revenues, customers in that region may delay or forego subscriptions of our solutions, which may materially and adversely impact our results of operations for a particular period. In addition, acts of terrorism could cause disruptions in our business or the business of our business partners, customers or the economy as a whole. All of the aforementioned risks may be exacerbated if the disaster recovery plans for us and our suppliers prove to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above results in delays of customer subscriptions or commercialization of our solutions, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the rules and regulations of the NASDAQ Stock Market. To comply with the requirements of being a public company, we may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing newadditional internal controls and procedures and hiring accounting or internal audit staff.

As a public company, we are required to comply with certain of these rules, which require management to certify financial and other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and other quarterly and annual reports and provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Our independent registered public accounting firm is not required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until the firstbeginning with this annual report required to be filed with the SEC following the datenow that we are no longer an “emerging growth company” as defined in the JOBS Act. At such time,It is possible that in the future our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse in the event it is not satisfied with the level at which our controls are documented, designed or operating. Our remediation efforts may not enable us to avoid a material weakness in the future. We will cease to be an “emerging growth company” upon the earliest of (i) the first fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of September 28, 2012, the date of our initial public offering, (ii) the first fiscal year after our annual gross revenues are $1 billion or more, (iii) the date on which we have, during the previous three-year period, issued more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt securities, or (iv) the date on which we are deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” as defined in the Exchange Act.

As a public company, we have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses. For example, we are required to comply with certain of the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as well as rules and regulations implemented by the SEC and the NASDAQ Stock Market, including the establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure controls and procedures, internal control over financial reporting, and changes in corporate governance practices. Despite recent reform made possible by the JOBS Act, which allows us to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies,” compliance with these requirements increases our legal and financial compliance costs and makes some activities more time-consuming and costly compared to when we were a privately-held company. In addition, our management and other personnel must divert attention from operational and other business matters to devote substantial time to these public company requirements.

We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur in the future as a result of being a public company or the timing of such costs. Being a public company also makes it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy

The trading price of our common stock has been, and may continue to be, subject to significant fluctuations in response to a number of factors, most of which we cannot predict or control, including:

In addition, the stock market in general, and the stocks of technology companies such as ours in particular, have experienced substantial price and volume volatility that is often seemingly unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. These broad market fluctuations may cause the trading price of our common stock to decline. In the past, securities class action litigation has often been brought against a company after a period of volatility in the trading price of its common stock. We may become involved in this type of litigation in the future. Any securities litigation claims brought against us could result in substantial expenses and the diversion of our management’s attention from our business.

From time to time, we have released, and may continue to release guidance in our quarterly earnings conference calls, quarterly earnings releases, or otherwise, regarding our future performance that represents our management's estimates as of the date of release. This guidance, which includes forward-looking statements, has been and will be based on projections prepared by our management. These projections are not prepared with a view toward compliance with published guidelines of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and

Projections are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while presented with numerical specificity, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control and are based upon specific assumptions with respect to future business decisions, some of which will change. We intend to state possible outcomes as high and low ranges which are intended to provide a sensitivity analysis as variables are changed but are not intended to imply that actual results could not fall outside of the suggested ranges. The principal reason that we release guidance is to provide a basis for our management to discuss our business outlook with analysts and investors. We do not accept any responsibility for any projections or reports published by any such third parties.

Guidance is necessarily speculative in nature, and it can be expected that some or all of the assumptions underlying the guidance furnished by us will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. Accordingly, our guidance is only an estimate of what management believes is realizable as of the date of release. Actual results may vary from our guidance and the variations may be material. In light of the foregoing, investors are urged not to rely upon our guidance in making an investment decision regarding our common stock.

Any failure to successfully implement our operating strategy or the occurrence of any of the events or circumstances set forth in this “Risk Factors” section in this Annual Report on Form 10-K could result in the actual operating results being different from our guidance, and the differences may be adverse and material.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our common stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the development, operation and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any return to stockholders will therefore be limited to the value of their stock.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may delay or prevent an acquisition of us or a change in our management. These provisions include:

In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which limits the ability of stockholders owning in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock to merge or combine with us. Although we believe these provisions collectively provide for an opportunity to obtain greater value for stockholders by requiring potential acquirers to negotiate with our board of directors, they would apply even if an offer rejected by our board were considered beneficial by some stockholders. In addition, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management.

We operate four principal data centers at third-party facilities in Santa Clara, California; Bellevue,Tukwilia, Washington, Ashburn, Virginia; Geneva, Switzerland; and Geneva, Switzerland.Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

From time to time we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. We are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, if determined adversely to us, would individually or taken together have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.

Not Applicable.

PART II

 

Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial information prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We calculate Adjusted EBITDA as net income before (1) other (income) expense, net, which includes interest income, interest expense and other income and expense, (2) provision for (benefit from) income taxes, (3) depreciation and amortization of property and equipment, (4) amortization of intangible assets and (5) stock-based compensation.

The following unaudited table presents the reconciliation of net income to Adjusted EBITDA for each of the periods presented.

We typically invoice our customers for the entire subscription amount at the start of the subscription term. Invoiced amounts are reflected on our consolidated balance sheetsheets as accounts receivable or as cash when collected, and as deferred revenues until earned and recognized ratably over the subscription period. Accordingly, deferred revenues represents the amount billed to customers that has not yet been earned or recognized as revenues, pursuant to subscriptions entered into in current and prior periods.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, comprised of salaries, benefits, performance-based compensation and stock-based compensation, for our research and development teams. Other expenses include third-party contractor fees, amortization of intangibles related to prior acquisitions and overhead allocations. All research and development costs are expensed as incurred. We expect to continue to devote substantial resources to research and development in an effort to continuously improve our existing solutions as well as develop new solutions and capabilities and expect that research and development expenses will increase in absolute dollars.

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, comprised of salaries, benefits, sales commissions, performance-based compensation and stock-based compensation for our worldwide sales and marketing teams. Other expenses include marketing and promotional events, lead-generation marketing programs, public relations, travel and overhead allocations. All costs are expensed as incurred, including sales commissions. Sales commissions are expensed in the quarter in which the related order is received and are paid in the month subsequent to the end of that quarter, which results in increased expenses prior to the recognition of related revenues. Our new sales personnel are typically not immediately productive, and the resulting increase in sales and marketing expenses we incur when we add new personnel may not result in increased revenues if these new sales personnel fail to become productive. The timing of our hiring of sales personnel, or the participation in new marketing events or programs, and the rate at which theythese generate incremental revenues, may affect our future operating results. We expect to continue to significantly invest in additional sales personnel worldwide and also in more marketing programs as we introduceto support new solutions on our platform, which will increase sales and marketing expenses in absolute dollars.

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, comprised of salaries, benefits, performance-based compensation and stock-based compensation, for our executive, finance and accounting, legal, human resources and internal information technology support teams, as well as professional services, insurance, fees, certain other corporate governance-related expenses, and overhead allocations. We expect that general and administrative expenses will increase in absolute dollars, as we continue to add personnel and incur professional services to support our growth and compliance with legal requirements.

Income taxes are accounted for under the asset and liability method. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the tax impact of timing differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities and their respective tax bases and operating loss and tax credit carry-forwards. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using statutory tax rates expected to apply to taxable income in the years in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in income in the period when the statutory rate change is enacted into law.

The following tables set forth selected consolidated statements of operations data for each of the periods presented.

The following table sets forth selected consolidated statements of operations data for each of the periods presented as a percentage of revenues.