We provide several ways for customers to receive upgrades, support and maintenance for products.

We provide a portfolio of professional services to our business partners and customers to manage the quality of implementation, operation and support of our solutions. These services are available for additional fees paid on an annual or transactional basis.

Innovation is a core Citrix competency. We have many additional unique inventionsinnovations that are important enablers of our continued leadership in desktop and application virtualization, mobility, cloud networking, cloud platforms, collaborationVDI and data sharing.networking.

Our corporate marketing organization provides sales and industry event support, demand generation, webWeb and social marketing, sales tools and collateral, advertising, direct mail, industry analyst relations and public relations coverage to our indirect channels to aid in market development and in attracting new customers. Our partner development organization actively supports our partners to improve their commitment and capabilities with Citrix solutions. Our customer sales organization consists of field-based systems sales engineers and corporate sales professionals who work directly with our largest customers, and coordinate integration services provided by our partners. Additional sales personnel, working in central locations and in the field, provide additional support including recruitment of prospective partners and technical training with respect to our products.

We control all purchasing, inventory, scheduling, order processing and accounting functions related to our operations. For our software products, production, warehousing and shipping are performed by our independent contractors HP,HPE, Ireland and Digital River. Master software, CD-ROMs, development of user manuals, packaging designs, initial product quality control and testing are primarily performed at our facilities. In some cases, independent contractors also duplicate CD-ROMs,master software, print documentation and package and assemble products to our specifications.

While it is generally our practice to promptly ship product upon receipt of properly finalized purchase orders, we sometimes have orders that have not shipped upon receipt of a purchase order. Although the amount of such product license orders may vary, the amount, if any, of such orders at the end of a fiscal year is not material to our business. We do not believe that backlog, as of any particular date, is a reliable indicator of future performance.

We believe that our fourth quarter revenues and expenses are affected by a number of seasonal factors, including the lapse of many corporations' fiscal year budgets and an increase in amounts paid pursuant to our sales compensation plans due to compensation plan accelerators that are often triggered in the fourth quarter. We believe that these seasonal factors are common within our industry. Such factors historically have resulted in first quarter revenues in any year being lower than the immediately preceding fourth quarter. We expect this trend to continue through the first quarter of 2014.2017. In addition, our European operations generally generate lower revenues in the summer months because of the generally reduced economic activity in Europe during the summer. This seasonal factor also typically results in higher fourth quarter revenues.

We sell our products in intensely competitive markets. Some of our competitors and potential competitors have significantly greater financial, technical, sales and marketing and other resources than we do. As the markets for our products and services continue to develop, additional companies, including those with significant market presence in the computer appliances, software, cloud services and networking industries, could enter the markets in which we compete and further intensify competition. In addition, we believe price competition could become a more significant competitive factor in the future. As a result, we may not be able to maintain our historic prices and margins, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. See “-Technology“Technology Relationships” and Part I-Item 1A entitled “Risk Factors” included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013.2016.

In the data sharing market, ShareFile'ssegment, our ShareFile product's direct competition includes Dropbox, Inc., Box, Inc.Syncplicity, BlackBerry's Watchdox, Accellion, Microsoft and HighTail, Inc. (formerly YouSendIt),Google, as well as legacy solutions likesuch as traditional file transfer protocol, or FTP, in the SMB market.FTP. Many of these competitors have strong brand recognition through their consumer and free versions of their products. However, we believe our ShareFile product offers a superior solution for businesses as it is built specifically for the needs of businesses. In the Enterprise segment, there are fewer direct competitors to the ShareFile product. Increased competition is anticipated as large enterprises need to deploy secure data syncing and sharing solutions for a growing mobile workforce. Webusiness. Further, we believe that Citrix'sour strong reputation in the Enterprise market,certain vertical segments, along with ShareFile's integration intowith other Citrix products, such as Receiver and XenMobile, and our unique ability to store data on-premise or in the Cloud, will beare key differentiators.

The GoTo Business segment competed against a key differentiator.host of products offered by a number of established technology players including Adobe, Google, Apple, Cisco, LMI and Microsoft, and its voice service offerings compete against services provided by telecom service providers such as Verizon, AT&T, Intercall, PGi, RingCentral, Vonage and BT. Additionally, the GoTo Business competed against a number of emerging players such as Zoom, HighFive, TeamViewer, Blue Jeans, Intercall, PGi, Ring Central, Vonage and Splashtop. The GoTo Business also competed against a host of alternative technologies, such as VPN or cloud-based platforms, and on-premise support options.

We expect to continue to face additional competition as new participants enter our markets. Asmarkets and as our businesses continuecurrent competitors seek to expand globally,increase market share. Further, we may see new and increased competition in different geographic regions. The generally low barriers to entry in certain of our businesses increase the potential for challenges from new industry competitors, which for certain of our businesses may includewhether small and medium sized businesses or larger, more established companies. Smaller companies new to our market may have more flexibility to develop on more agile platforms and have greater ability to adapt their strategystrategies and cost

As a globally operated company, we are subject to the risks arising from adverse changes in global economic and market conditions. Continued economic uncertainty across all our significant geographic locations may adversely affect sales of our products and services and may result in longer sales cycles, slower adoption of technologies and increased price competition. For example, if the U.S. or China were to experience an economic downturn, these adverse economic conditions could

Overall, the timing of our revenue is difficult to predict. Our quarterly sales have historically reflected an uneven pattern in which a disproportionate percentage of a quarter’s total sales occur in the last month, weeks and days of each quarter. In addition, our business is subject to seasonal fluctuations and such fluctuations are generally highestmost significant in our fourth fiscal quarter, which we believe is due to the lapse of customers'impact on revenue from the availability (or lack thereof) in our customers’ fiscal year budgets and an increase in expenses resulting from amounts paid pursuant to our sales compensation plans due to compensation plan accelerators thatas performance milestones are often triggered in the fourth quarter. We believe that these seasonal factors are common within our industry. In addition, our European operations generally generate lower revenues in the summer months because of the generally reduced economic activity in Europe during the summer.

We rely on a concentrated number of third-party suppliers, who provide hardware or hardware components for our CloudDelivery Networking products, and contract manufacturers. If we are required to change suppliers, there could be a delay in the supply of our hardware or hardware components and our ability to meet the demands of our customers could be adversely affected, which could cause the loss of CloudDelivery Networking sales and existing or potential customers and delayed revenue recognition and adversely affect our results of operations. While we have not, to date, experienced any material difficulties or delays in the manufacture and assembly of our CloudDelivery Networking products, our suppliers may encounter problems during manufacturing due to a variety of reasons, including failure to follow specific protocols and procedures, failure to comply with applicable regulations, or the need to implement costly or time-consuming protocols to comply with applicable regulations (including regulations related to conflict minerals), equipment malfunction, natural disasters and environmental factors, any of which could delay or impede their ability to meet our demand.

We have a significant amount of goodwill and other intangible assets, such as product related intangible assets, from our acquisitions. We do not amortize goodwill and intangible assets that are deemed to have indefinite lives. However, we do amortize certain product related technologies, trademarks, patents and other intangibles and we periodically evaluate them for impairment. We review goodwill for impairment annually, or sooner if events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount could exceed fair value, at the reporting unit level, which for us also represents our operating segments. Significant judgments are required to estimate the fair value of our goodwill and intangible assets, including estimating future cash flows, determining appropriate discount rates, estimating the applicable tax rates, foreign exchange rates and interest rates, projecting the future industry trends and market conditions, and making other assumptions. Although we believe the assumptions, judgments and estimates we have made have been reasonable and appropriate, different assumptions, judgments and estimates, materially affect our results of operations. Changes in these estimates and assumptions, including changes in our reporting structure, could materially affect our determinations of fair value. In addition, due to uncertain market conditions and potential changes in our strategy and product portfolio, it is possible that the forecasts we use to support our goodwill and other intangible assets could change in the future, which could result in non-cash charges that would adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. Also, we may make divestitures of businesses in the future. If we determine that any of the goodwill or other intangible assets associated with our acquisitions is impaired or goodwill is impaired, then we would be required to reduce the value of those assets or to write them off completely by taking a charge to current earnings. If we are required to write down or

We have several strategic and technology relationships with large and complex organizations, such as Microsoft, and Cisco, and other companies with which we work to offer complementary products and services. We depend on the companies with which we have strategic relationships to successfully test our products, to incorporate our technology into their products and to market and sell those products. There can be no assurance we will realize the expected benefits from these strategic relationships or that they will continue in the future. If successful, these relationships may be mutually beneficial and result in industry growth. However, such relationships carry an element of risk because, in most cases, we must compete in some business areas with a company with which we have a strategic relationship and, at the same time, cooperate with that company in other business areas. Also, if these companies fail to perform or if these relationships fail to materialize as expected, we

In addition to risks related to license requirements, usage of open source software can lead to greater risks than use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide technology support, maintenance, warranties or assurance of title or controls on the origin of the software.

Our worldwide operations are dependent on our network infrastructure, internal technology systems and website. Significant portions of our computer equipment, intellectual property resources and personnel, including critical resources dedicated to research and development and administrative support functions are presently located at our corporate headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, an area of the country that is particularly prone to hurricanes, and at our various locations in California, an area of the country that is particularly prone to earthquakes. We also have operations in various domestic and international locations that expose us to additional diverse risks. The occurrence of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods or earthquakes, or other unanticipated catastrophes, such as telecommunications failures, cyber-attacks, fires or terrorist attacks, at any of the locations in which we or our key partners, suppliers and customers do business, could cause interruptions in our operations. For example, hurricanes have passed through southern Florida causing extensive damage to the region. In addition, even in the absence of direct damage to our operations, large disasters, terrorist attacks or other casualty events could have a significant impact on our partners'partners’, suppliers'suppliers’ and customers'customers’ businesses, which in turn could result in a negative impact on our results of operations. Extensive or multiple disruptions in our operations, or our partners'partners’, suppliers'suppliers’ or customers'customers’ businesses, due to natural disasters or other unanticipated catastrophes could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Any of these factors could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we have invested inincur additional indebtedness, the risks related to our business and our ability to service or repay our indebtedness would increase.