Forward Looking Statements

 

With the exception of historical facts, the statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and are subject to the safe harbor provisions set forth in the Exchange Act. Forward-looking statements usually contain the words “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “predict,” “seek,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “believe,” or similar expressions and variations or negatives of these words. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements, including but not limited to:

 

(1) the possibility we may acquire technology through business combinations or through licensing from third parties when appropriate;

 

(2) our belief that we are fully compliant with all environmental laws;

 

(3) our intention to continue to commit substantial resources to research and development;

 

(4) our belief that period-to-period comparisons of our results of operations are not necessarily meaningful and should not be relied upon as indicators of future performance;

 

(5) our intention to continue to establish and maintain business relationships with technology companies to accelerate the development and marketing of our storage solutions;

 

(6) our belief that building our global brand awareness is key to our long-term success;

 

(7) our belief that industry consolidation may result in stronger competitors;

 

(8) our intention to regularly introduce new products and product enhancements;

 

(9) our belief that the underlying credit quality of the assets backing our auction rate securities investments have not been impacted by the reduced liquidity of these investments;

 

(10) our belief that a number of factors may cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate;

 

(11) our intention to not pay a dividend, and to retain all available funds to finance internal growth and product development as well as other possible management initiatives;

 

(12) our belief that our products continue to offer the best price-performance value in the industry;

 

(13) our belief that we will be able to continue to gain market share in a more constrained spending environment;

 

(14) our belief that we are well positioned in the fastest growth segments of the storage market to capitalize on an IT spending recovery;

 

(15) our intention to continue to invest in the people, processes, and systems necessary to best optimize our revenue growth, long-term profitability and enhance our worldwide infrastructure;

 

(16) our expectation that our future gross margins will be affected by various factors such as increased software revenues, price reductions and discounts and increased indirect channel sales;

 

(17) our estimates regarding future amortization of existing technology relating to our acquisitions;

 

(18) our expectation that service margins will experience some variability;

 

(19) our estimates regarding future amortization of trademarks, tradenames, customer contracts, and relationships relating to our acquisitions;

(20) our intention to continue to add sales capacity in an effort to expand our penetration of domestic and international markets;

 

(21) our expectation that we will increase our sales and marketing expenses commensurate with future revenue growth;

 

(22) our estimates regarding future capitalized patents amortization expenses;

 

(23) our belief that our future performance will depend in large part on our ability to maintain and enhance our current product line, develop new products, maintain technological competitiveness, and meet an expanding range of customer requirements;

 

(24) our intention to continuously support current and future product development;

 

(25) our intention to continuously broaden our existing product offerings and introduce new products;

 

(26) our belief that our sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative expenses will increase in absolute dollars in fiscal 2009;

 

(27) our belief that our review of restructuring estimates may result in a substantial charge or reduction to restructuring expense if different conditions prevail than were anticipated in previous management estimates;

 

(28) our expectation that the balance of the restructuring reserve relating to closure of facilities and consolidation of resources will be paid by fiscal 2011;

 

(29) our expectation that our interest income will continue to be impacted by the volatility of market interest rates, cash and investment balances, cash generated by operations, timing of our stock repurchases, capital expenditures and payments of our future contractual obligations;

 

(30) our expectation that interest expense will be subject to market interest rate volatility and amounts due under various loan agreements;

 

(31) our belief that period-to-period changes in foreign exchange gains or losses will continue to be impacted by hedging costs associated with our forward and option activities and forecast variance;

 

(32) our belief that we will have sufficient liquidity from cash provided by operations and our financing agreements;

 

(33) the possibility we may receive less cash from stock option exercises if stock option exercise patterns change;

 

(34) the possibility that we may receive less tax benefits and increase our income tax payments if our stock price declines;

 

(35) our expectation regarding interest payments on our outstanding secured credit agreement;

 

(36) our expectations regarding our contractual cash obligations and other commercial commitments at April 25, 2008, for future periods;

 

(37) our expectation regarding the completion of construction of our buildings under the BNP leases;

 

(38) our expectation that capital expenditures will increase commensurate with our business growth;

 

(39) our expectation that our existing facilities and those being developed in Sunnyvale, California; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and worldwide are adequate for our requirements over at least the next two years and that additional space will be available as needed;

 

(40) our expectation that we will finance construction projects, including our commitments under facilities and equipment operating leases, and any required capital expenditures over the next few years through cash from operations and existing cash, cash equivalents, and investments;

 

(41) our belief that our diversified customer base should mitigate our exposure to any one industry;

(42) our expectation that we will incur higher capital expenditures in the near future to expand our operations;

 

(43) our intention to acquire products and businesses that are complementary to our business;

 

(44) the possibility that we will continue to repurchase our common stock, thereby reducing cash, cash equivalents, and/or short-term investments available to fund future operations and meet other liquidity requirements;

 

(45) our belief that our cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments, cash generated from operations, and credit facilities will satisfy our working capital needs, capital expenditures, stock repurchases, contractual obligations, and other liquidity requirements associated with our operations for at least the next twelve months;

 

(46) our intention to hold the auction rate securities until the market recovers;

 

(47) our belief that any lack of liquidity relating to our auction rate securities investments will not have an impact on our ability to fund operations;

 

(48) our belief that cash flow generated from operations reinvested at current market rates will offer a natural hedge against interest rate risk from our lease commitments and debt in the event of a significant change in market interest rate;

 

(49) our belief that the IRS federal tax audits we are currently undergoing will not have a material adverse effect upon our consolidated financial position, results of operations and cash flow;

 

(50) our belief that various legal proceedings and claims which have arisen or may arise in the normal course of business will not have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, operating results, or financial condition;

 

(51) our inability to estimate the amount or range of the potential settlement with respect to the various Sun patent litigations; and

 

(52) our inability to determine the likely outcome of the GSA audit, therefore no provision has been recorded,

 

are all inherently uncertain as they are based on management’s current expectations and assumptions concerning future events, and they are subject to numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Therefore, our actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include, but are not limited to:

 

 

 

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof and are based upon information available to us at this time. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. We disclaim any obligation to update information in any forward-looking statement. Actual results could vary from our forward looking statements due to foregoing factors as well as other important factors, including those described in the Risk Factors included on page 11.

 

Overview

 

NetApp, Inc. (“NetApp,” formerly known as Network Appliance, Inc.) is a leading provider of storage and data management solutions. We offer solutions for storing, managing, protecting and archiving business data. Our solutions are designed to lower the cost of managing and protecting our customers’ data while maximizing the return on infrastructure.

 

We believe in offering complete solutions to help customers effectively streamline operations. We strive to provide customers with the best experience in the industry with every interaction they have with our people, products and services. In addition to our broad range of storage and data management solutions, we provide global service and support, offer flexible financing solutions and work to simplify customer environments by utilizing open standards, driving industry collaboration and partnering with other industry leaders. Using a combination of products, technologies and partners, we help solve customer business challenges while helping them maximize return on investment.

 

Our products and services are designed to meet the expansive requirements and demanding service levels of large enterprises and their mission-critical business applications. To better meet these needs, we partner with key industry leaders, such as IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP Corporation, Symantec Corporation and VMware, Inc., to develop integrated solutions that optimize the performance of their applications on our systems. In addition, our products have been designed to satisfy the rigorous demands of high performance computing and technical data center applications, today offering solutions used in the design of semiconductors and automobiles, and graphics rendering and seismic exploration.

 

We were incorporated in 1992 and shipped the world’s first networked storage appliance a year later. Since then, we have brought to market many significant innovations and industry firsts in storage and data management. We have grown to over 7,000 employees with operations in over 130 countries around the world.

 

NetApp Product Families

 

We offer highly available, scalable and cost-effective storage solutions that incorporate our unified storage platform and the feature-rich functionality of our data and storage resource management software. Our solutions help improve enterprise productivity, performance and profitability, while providing investment protection and enhanced asset utilization. Our enterprise-class storage solutions are complemented by our services expertise to ensure interoperability and optimization in the context of the application and IT infrastructure within which they are deployed.

 

Data ONTAP^® Software

 

Our Fabric-Attached Storage (“FAS”) and V-Series storage solutions are based on Data ONTAP^®, a highly optimized, scalable and flexible operating system that uniquely supports any mix of storage area network (“SAN”), network-attached storage (“NAS”) and Internet protocol SAN (“IP SAN”) environments concurrently. This unified storage software platform integrates seamlessly into UNIX^®, Linux^®, Windows^® and Web environments.

The Data ONTAP operating system provides the foundation to build a storage infrastructure and an enterprise-wide data fabric for mission-critical business applications, while lowering the total cost of ownership and complexity typically associated with the management of large-scale enterprise data centers.

 

Data ONTAP GX, our high-performance operating system, supports fully integrated, multi-node storage systems within a single global name space. This storage grid architecture provides the ability to dynamically add storage resources and transparently redistribute data without disruption to client systems. We are in the process of integrating the Data ONTAP GX functionality with the core Data ONTAP capabilities and will ultimately converge both into a single operating system.

 

Data Management Software

 

Our products are in use today in some of the largest data centers in the world. These environments require enterprise-class management tools. We provide management software to increase productivity and simplify data management. Such tools include:

 

 

Storage Management and Application Integration Software

 

Our management software family of products provides a broad range of storage and data management tools to simplify IT administration and enhance flexibility and productivity. We deliver differentiated products and collaborate with industry open standards and interfaces to deliver this value to customers. We have four suites of products targeted to different IT administrative roles: Storage Suite, Server Suite, Database Suite and Application Suite. The software products within these suites are tightly integrated with database and business applications software from partners such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and VMware in order to optimize the performance of those applications on our storage systems. Our product offering extends into data center automation with our recent acquisition of Onaro, Inc., and its SANscreen software, which provides the capability to monitor service levels, manage performance and support change management in complex enterprise SAN environments.

 

FAS Family

 

Our family of modular, scalable, highly available, unified networked storage systems provides seamless access to a full range of enterprise data for users on a variety of platforms. The FAS 6000, FAS 3000, FAS 2000 and FAS 200 series of fabric-attached enterprise storage systems are designed to consolidate UNIX, Windows, NAS, Fibre Channel (“FC”), Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (“iSCSI”), SAN and Web data in central locations running over the standard connection types: Gigabit Ethernet, FC and parallel SCSI (for backup). Our design optimizes and consolidates high-performance data access for individuals in multi-user environments as well as for application servers and server clusters with dedicated access. All of our FAS systems are interoperable and run the highly efficient Data ONTAP operating system.

V-Series Family

 

Our V-Series is a network-based virtualization solution that consolidates storage arrays from different suppliers behind our data management interface, providing SAN and NAS access to data stored in heterogeneous storage arrays. With the V-Series solution, customers are able to: transform existing heterogeneous, multi-vendor storage systems into a single storage pool; simplify storage provisioning and management with Data ONTAP thin provisioning; and dramatically lower backup time, space and cost with Data ONTAP Snapshot^tm copies. The V-Series is compatible with the FAS family of storage systems.

 

StoreVault^tm

 

StoreVault is a storage solution that leverages enterprise-proven ONTAP technology and optimizes it to focus on serving small to medium-sized businesses (“SMBs”), as well as larger enterprises in need of small or departmental storage solutions. Sold exclusively through value-added resellers, we believe that StoreVault is the only packaging of advanced enterprise storage technologies that has been simplified and made available for SMB use.

 

NearStore on FAS

 

The NearStore^® option for FAS systems is a flexible near-line software package that combines the Data ONTAP operating system with inexpensive SATA disk drives to provide cost-effective, scalable and fast storage for data protection and retention applications. The NearStore software bundle bridges the gap between primary storage and offline storage by providing much faster data access than offline storage at a cost typically much lower than primary storage. NearStore is ideal for disk-to-disk backup, business continuance, archival, compliant retention and content storage.

 

VTL Data Protection Systems

 

Our Virtual Tape Library (“VTL”) solution is a disk-to-disk backup appliance that appears as a tape library to a backup software application, but provides the superior speed and reliability of disk technologies. Our VTL is a high-performance, easily managed system that can be used in any heterogeneous primary storage environment. Developed specifically to address the requirements of backup administrators, our VTL solutions increase the performance and reliability of backups, simplify backup management and reduce storage costs in traditional data center tape backup infrastructures.

 

Data Protection Software Products

 

We offer a broad range of business continuance and disk backup solutions for enterprise customer environments. Our Snapshot technology enables near-instantaneous, space efficient online backups of large data sets without affecting system performance. MetroCluster, SnapMirror^®, SyncMirror^® and SnapRestore^® products provide an appropriate level of data availability and cost of protection matched to the recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives of customer environments. SnapVault^®, Open Systems SnapVault and SnapVault for NetBackup^tm products provide network- and storage-optimized disk-to-disk backup solutions.

 

Data Retention and Archive Products

 

To meet growing regulatory compliance demands faced by most enterprises, we offer a broad suite of products to help ensure data permanence, accessibility and privacy across a variety of different regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 21 CFR Part 11, SEC Rule 17a-4 and HIPAA. Immutable, cost-effective, resilient and reliable storage architectures can be created utilizing SnapLock^® products in conjunction with our NearStore software. Our Information Server 1200 product provides advanced capabilities for both initial classification and subsequent e-discovery requirements.

Storage Security Products

 

Security has become a critical element of data management, and we have taken a leading role in driving security innovation. Our DataFort storage security appliance provides a unified platform for data security and key management across NAS, IP SAN, FC SAN and tape backup environments. The platform combines wire-speed encryption, access controls, authentication and automated key management to provide strong security for data at rest, while still allowing the capability to search compliant data for legal discovery purposes if the need arises.

 

NetApp Global Services

 

Our customers demand high availability and reliability of their storage infrastructure to ensure the successful, ongoing operation of their businesses. NetApp Global Services (“NGS”) are designed with this in mind. We provide professional services, global support solutions and customer education and training to help customers most effectively manage their data. The professional services and support solutions we offer help our customers to resolve business problems, reduce costs, keep businesses up and running continuously, comply with regulations and policies and improve overall operational results. We utilize a global, integrated model to provide consistent service delivery and global support during every phase of the customer engagement, including assessment and analysis, planning, design, installation, implementation, integration, optimization, ongoing support and remote management and monitoring. Services and support often involve phased rollouts, technology transitions and migrations and other long-term engagements.

 

Principal Markets and Distribution Channels

 

We market and sell our products in numerous countries throughout the world, and in March 2008, we launched a global branding and awareness campaign to increase the visibility of NetApp in the broader IT market. Our diversified customer base represents a number of large segments and vertical markets. We focus primarily on the enterprise data management and storage solutions markets, offering an array of products from our ultra high-end products designed for large enterprise customers to our low-end products designed for SMBs. We have also expanded into the VTL and data encryption markets, bringing us into parts of the data center in which we have not previously competed. With our next-generation operating system, Data ONTAP GX, we offer storage grid architecture to high-performance computing environments.

 

We employ a multi-channel distribution strategy, selling products and services to end users through a direct sales force, value-added resellers, system integrators, original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and distributors. In North America, Europe and Australia, we employ a mix of resellers and direct sales channels to sell to end users. In Asia, Africa and South America, our products are primarily sold through resellers, which are supported by channel sales representatives and technical support personnel. No single customer or distributor accounted for 10% or more of our net sales during fiscal 2008, 2007 or 2006.

 

Seasonality

 

As the size of our business has grown, we have begun to see a seasonal decline in revenues in the first quarter of our fiscal year. In addition, we also see some international seasonality, as sales to European customers are historically weaker during the summer months. Sales to the U.S. government tend to be seasonally stronger during our second fiscal quarter, concurrent with the end of the U.S. federal government’s fiscal year in September.

 

Backlog

 

We manufacture products based on a combination of specific order requirements and forecasts of our customers’ demand. Orders are generally placed by customers on an as-needed basis. Products are typically shipped within one to four weeks following receipt of an order. In certain circumstances, customers may cancel or reschedule orders without penalty. For these reasons, “orders” may not constitute a firm backlog and may not be a meaningful indicator of future revenues.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

 

We have outsourced manufacturing operations to third parties located in Fremont, California; Livingston, Scotland; Shanghai, China; Singapore; Tao Yuan Shien, Taiwan; and Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands. These operations include materials procurement, commodity management, component engineering, test engineering, manufacturing engineering, product assembly, product assurance, quality control, final test and global logistics. We rely on a limited number of suppliers for materials, as well as several key subcontractors for the production of certain subassemblies and finished systems. We multi-source wherever possible to mitigate supply risk. Our strategy has been to develop close relationships with our suppliers, exchanging critical information and implementing joint quality programs. We also use contract manufacturers for the production of major subassemblies to improve our manufacturing redundancy. This manufacturing strategy minimizes capital investments and overhead expenditures and creates flexibility for rapid expansion. We were awarded ISO 9001 certification on May 29, 1997 and continue to be ISO 9001 certified. We were awarded ISO 14001 certification on December 8, 2004 and continue to be ISO 14001 certified.

 

Research and Development

 

We conduct research and development activities in various locations throughout the world. In fiscal 2008, 2007 and 2006, research and development expenses represented 13.7%, 13.7% and 12.2% of our total revenue, respectively. These costs relate primarily to personnel and related costs incurred to conduct product development activities. Although we develop many of our products internally, we may acquire technology through business combinations or through licensing from third parties when appropriate. We believe that technical leadership is essential to our success and we expect to continue to commit substantial resources to research and development.

 

Competition

 

In the storage market, our primary and near-line storage system products and our associated software portfolio compete primarily with storage system products and data management software from EMC, Hitachi Data Systems (“HDS”), HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems. In addition, Dell, Inc. is a competitor in the storage marketplace through its business arrangement with EMC, which allows Dell to resell EMC storage hardware and software products, as well as through Dell’s recent acquisition of EqualLogic through which Dell offers low-priced storage solutions. In the secondary storage market, which includes the disk-to-disk backup, compliance and business continuity segments, our solutions compete primarily against products from EMC and Sun Microsystems. Our VTL products also compete with traditional tape backup solutions in the broader data backup/recovery space. Additionally, a number of small, newer companies have recently entered the storage systems and data management software markets, the near-line and VTL storage markets and the high-performance clustered storage markets, some of which may become significant competitors in the future.

 

Customer Base

 

Our diversified customer base spans a number of large segments and vertical markets. Examples include: energy, financial services, government, high technology, Internet, life sciences and healthcare services, major manufacturing, media, entertainment, animation and video postproduction and telecommunications.

 

Segment, Geographic Information and Classes of Similar Product and Services

 

See Note 9 to the Consolidated Financials Statements accompanying this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Information about our classes of similar product and services is included in Item 8 — “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” under the heading “Consolidated Statements of Income” and “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” and is incorporated herein by reference.

 

Proprietary Rights

 

We currently rely on a combination of copyright and trademark laws, trade secrets, confidentiality procedures, contractual provisions, and patents to protect our proprietary rights. We seek to protect our software, documentation, and other written materials under trade secret, copyright, and patent laws, which afford only limited

protection. We have registered our NetApp name and logo, Network Appliance name and logo, Data ONTAP, DataFabric, FAServer^®, FlexVol, FilerView, NearStore, NetApp, NetCache, SecureShare, SnapDrive, SnapLock, SnapManager, SnapMirror, SnapRestore, SnapVault, WAFL, and others as trademarks in the U.S. Other U.S. trademarks and some of the other U.S. registered trademarks are registered internationally as well. We will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks as appropriate. We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, resellers, and customers. We currently have multiple U.S. and international patent applications pending and multiple U.S. patents issued.

 

In addition, through various licensing arrangements, we receive certain rights to intellectual property of others. We expect to maintain current licensing arrangements and to secure licensing arrangements in the future, as needed and to the extent available on reasonable terms and conditions, to support continued development and sales of our products and services. Some of these licensing arrangements require or may require royalty payments and other licensing fees. The amount of these payments and fees may depend on various factors, including but not limited to: the structure of royalty payments, offsetting considerations, if any, and the degree of use of the licensed technology.

 

See Item 1A “Risk Factors — We are exposed to various risks related to legal proceedings or claims and protection of intellectual property rights, which could adversely affect our operating results.”

 

Environmental Disclosure

 

Various federal state and local provisions regulate the use and discharge of certain hazardous materials used in our manufacturing. Failure to comply with environmental regulations in the future could cause us to incur substantial costs or subject us to business interruptions. We believe we are fully compliant with all applicable environmental laws.

 

Working Capital Practices

 

Information about our working capital practices is included in Item 7 — “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” under the heading “Financial Condition, Capital Resources and Liquidity” and is incorporated herein by reference.

 

Government Contracts

 

We derive revenues from contracts with the United States government, state and local governments and their respective agencies. Our sales to government clients subject us to risks including early termination, audits, investigations, sanctions and penalties. For more information, refer to Item 1A “Risk Factor — The U.S. government has contributed to our revenue growth and has become an important customer for us.” In addition, please refer to Item 3. “Legal Proceedings” for information related to our GSA audit.

 

Foreign Operations and Export Sales

 

Information about our foreign operations and export sales is included in Note 9 — “Segment, Geographic, and Customer Information” and Item 1A “Risk Factors — Risks inherent in our international operations could have a material adverse effect on our operating results” and is incorporated herein by reference.

 

Employees

 

As of April 25, 2008, we had 7,645 employees. Of the total, 4,279 were in sales and marketing, 2,385 in research and development, 843 in finance and administration, and 138 in manufacturing. Our future performance depends in significant part on our key technical and senior management personnel, none of whom are bound by an employment agreement. We have never had a work stoppage and consider relations with our employees to be good.

Executive Officers

 

Our executive officers and their ages as of May 25, 2008, are as follows:

 

 

Daniel J. Warmenhoven joined NetApp in October 1994 as president and chief executive officer, and has been a member of the Board of Directors since October 1994. Mr. Warmenhoven currently serves as chief executive officer and as of March 2008 he was appointed chairman of the Board of Directors. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Warmenhoven served in various capacities, including president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the Board of Directors of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc., a telecommunications equipment company, from November 1989 to January 1994. Prior to Network Equipment Technologies, Mr. Warmenhoven held executive and managerial positions at Hewlett-Packard from 1985 to 1989 and IBM Corporation from 1972 to 1985. Mr. Warmenhoven is a Director of Aruba Networks, Inc. Mr. Warmenhoven holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University.

 

Thomas F. Mendoza was appointed vice chairman in March 2008. Mr. Mendoza joined the company in May 1994 and served as president from October 2000 to March 2008. Prior to March 2000, he served in various capacities at NetApp including senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing, senior vice president, worldwide sales and vice president, North American sales. Mr. Mendoza has more than 30 years of experience as a high-technology executive and has held executive positions at Auspex Systems, Inc. and Stratus Technologies, Inc. He holds a B.A. degree in economics from Notre Dame and is an alumnus of Stanford University’s Executive Business Program. In September 2000, the University of Notre Dame renamed its business school the Mendoza College of Business in honor of an endowment from Tom and his wife, Kathy.

 

Thomas Georgens is the president and chief operating officer of the Company and is responsible for all product operations and field operations worldwide. Mr. Georgens has also been a member of the Board of Directors at NetApp since March 2008. Mr. Georgens joined the Company in 2005 and served as the Company’s executive vice president of product operations from January 2007 until February 2008. Prior to January 2007, Mr. Georgens served as the Company’s executive vice president and general manager of enterprise storage systems. Before joining the Company, Mr. Georgens spent nine years at Engenio, a subsidiary of LSI Logic, the last two years as chief executive officer. He has also served in various other positions, including president of LSI Logic Storage Systems and executive vice president of LSI Logic. Prior to Engenio, Mr. Georgens spent 11 years at EMC in a variety of engineering and marketing positions. Mr. Georgens holds a B.S. degree and an M.E. degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as well as an M.B.A. degree from Babson College.

 

Steven J. Gomo joined NetApp in August 2002 as senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer. He was appointed executive vice president of finance and chief financial officer in October 2004. Prior to joining the Company, he served as chief financial officer for Gemplus International S.A., headquartered in Luxembourg from November 2000 to April 2002 and as chief financial officer of Silicon Graphics, Inc., from February 1998 to August 2000. Prior to February 1998, he worked at Hewlett-Packard Company for 24 years in various positions, including financial management, corporate finance, general management, and manufacturing. Mr. Gomo currently serves on the board of SanDisk Corporation. Mr. Gomo holds an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University and a B.S. degree in business administration from Oregon State University.

 

Robert E. Salmon joined NetApp in January 1994 and was appointed executive vice president, field operations in December 2005. Mr. Salmon has served as the Company’s executive vice president of worldwide sales since September 2004. From August 2003 to September 2004, Mr. Salmon served as the Company’s senior vice president of worldwide sales and from May 2000 to August 2003, Mr. Salmon served as the Company’s vice president of

North American sales. Mr. Salmon joined the Company in 1994 after nearly ten years with Sun Microsystems and Data General Corporation. Mr. Salmon graduated from California State University, Chico with a B.S. degree in computer science.

 

Additional Information

 

Our Internet address is www.netapp.com. We make available through our Internet Web site our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC.

 

The SEC maintains an Internet site (www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The public also may read and copy these filings at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. Information about this Public Reference Room is available by calling (800) SEC-0330.

 

 

The following risk factors and other information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K should be carefully considered. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we presently deem less significant may also impair our business operations. Please see page 2 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional discussion of these forward-looking statements. If any of the following risks actually occurs, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

 

Factors beyond our control could cause our quarterly results to fluctuate, which could adversely impact our common stock price.

 

We believe that period-to-period comparisons of our results of operations are not necessarily meaningful and should not be relied upon as indicators of future performance. Many of the factors that could cause our quarterly operating results to fluctuate significantly in the future are beyond our control and include, but are not limited to, the following:

 

 

 

In addition, sales for any future quarter may vary and accordingly be different from what we forecast. We manufacture products based on a combination of specific order requirements and forecasts of our customer demands. Products are typically shipped within one to four weeks following receipt of an order. In certain circumstances, customers may cancel or reschedule orders without penalty. Product sales are also difficult to forecast because the storage and data management market is rapidly evolving, and our sales cycle varies substantially from customer to customer.

 

We derive a majority of our revenue in any given quarter from orders booked in the same quarter. Bookings typically follow intraquarter seasonality patterns weighted toward the back end of the quarter. If we do not achieve bookings in the latter part of a quarter consistent with our quarterly financial targets, our financial results will be adversely impacted. If revenues do not meet our expectations, our operating profit may be negatively impacted because portions of our expenses are fixed and difficult to reduce in a short period of time. If our revenues are lower than expected, our fixed expenses could adversely affect our net income and cash flow until revenues increase or until such fixed expenses are reduced to a level commensurate with revenues.

 

Due to all of the foregoing factors, it is possible that in one or more quarters our results may fall below our forecasts and the expectations of public market analysts and investors. In such event, the trading price of our common stock would likely decrease.