UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

FORM 10-K

 

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018

OR

For the transition period from                         to                        

Commission File Number 000-24435

 

MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

 

Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code: (703) 848-8600

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:  Not applicable

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes  ☐    No  ☒

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  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company.  See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.  (Check one):

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

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

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant (based on the last reported sale price of the registrant’s class A common stock on June 29, 2018 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market) was approximately $1,207.6 million.

The number of shares of the registrant’s class A common stock and class B common stock outstanding on February 11, 2019 was 8,241,769 and 2,035,184, respectively.

Documents incorporated by reference:  Portions of the definitive proxy statement for the 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of the Registrant to be filed subsequently with the SEC are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the extent indicated herein.

 

 

 

 

 

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MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

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The trademarks and registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated and its subsidiaries referred to herein include, but are not limited to, MicroStrategy, Intelligent Enterprise, MicroStrategy 2019, HyperIntelligence, HyperCard, Enterprise Semantic Graph, MicroStrategy Library, Dossier, MicroStrategy Badge, MicroStrategy Communicator, MicroStrategy Analytics Platform, MicroStrategy Cloud, MicroStrategy Services, MicroStrategy Consulting, MicroStrategy Education, Global Delivery Center, Zero-Click Intelligence, MicroStrategy 10, and MicroStrategy 9.  Third-party product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

 

 

CERTAIN DEFINITIONS

All references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K (“Annual Report”) to “MicroStrategy,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to MicroStrategy Incorporated and its consolidated subsidiaries (unless the context otherwise indicates).

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including without limitation, certain statements under “Item 1. Business,” “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” and “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and located elsewhere herein regarding industry prospects and our results of operations or financial position, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The important factors discussed under “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements made herein and presented elsewhere by management from time to time. Such forward-looking statements represent management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Investors are warned that actual results may differ from management’s expectations.

 

 

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PART I

 

Overview

MicroStrategy^® is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise analytics and mobility software. Our goal is to provide enterprise customers with a world-class software platform and expert services to enable each of our customers to become a more Intelligent Enterprise™. MicroStrategy was incorporated as a Delaware corporation on November 17, 1989. Today, with operations in 29 countries worldwide, MicroStrategy is one of the largest independent, publicly-traded analytics companies as measured by annual revenue.

MicroStrategy 2019™

MicroStrategy 2019, our latest platform release, features HyperIntelligence™, transformational mobility, and federated analytics. MicroStrategy 2019 delivers modern analytics on an enterprise platform that can be deployed on-premises or on multiple private and public cloud platforms. It is designed to make every enterprise a more Intelligent Enterprise by delivering:

HyperIntelligence. This new category of analytics is designed to transform the way people interact with information and find answers by seamlessly delivering intelligence to more groups of users through zero-click experiences. With the HyperCard™ application, users with Google Chrome can simply hover over a highlighted word on websites and other browser-based applications to instantly bring up relevant, contextual insights on key terms, including employee, customer, and organization names. With HyperIntelligence, users can also leverage APIs to design and deploy artificial intelligence (“AI”) applications that deliver zero-click experiences by integrating with modern third-party technologies and devices, including voice assistants like Alexa or Siri, image recognition software, and GPS applications.

Transformational mobility. This category of analytical applications is targeted at the increasingly mobile workforce tasked with making decisions and taking action within minutes. MicroStrategy 2019 delivers more ways for organizations to quickly deploy mobile productivity apps for a variety of business functions and roles on any standard device. Users can build apps using one of three powerful strategies: (i) mobile dossiers – to quickly build interactive books of analytics that render beautifully on smartphones and tablets; (ii) no code drag-and-drop – for branded custom apps that mobilize systems, processes, and applications; and (iii) customized development – with software development kits (“SDKs”) for iOS and Android that let developers extend MicroStrategy content into their apps using XCode or JavaScript.

Federated analytics. This mainstream category of analytics is targeted at analysts and data scientists, who enable long-term decision making.  Whether through dossiers, dashboards, or predictive models, or reporting for project performance, financial statements, or billing, MicroStrategy 2019 is designed to empower users with trusted analytics.  The platform also supports users who access data using their favorite third-party tools or interact with apps or websites that have been enriched with HyperIntelligence. Analysts who use Excel, Power BI, Qlik, or Tableau and data scientists who leverage RStudio or Jupyter Notebook can now boost their productivity by using the MicroStrategy 2019 platform for trusted, scalable, federated analytics.

MicroStrategy 2019 is an open, API-driven platform powered by our proprietary Enterprise Semantic Graph™, an enriched index that builds on the metadata-based (data about data), centralized architecture that is a core differentiator of our technology. The Enterprise Semantic Graph supplements metadata content and the foundational business glossary with real-time usage information and system and location telemetry, enabling a new generation of AI-driven applications powered by contextual recommendations and personalized insights.

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The broad range of features available with MicroStrategy 2019 are designed to benefit various users across the organization, including:

Business users

Analysts

Developers

Data scientists

Architects and administrators

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Deployment. MicroStrategy 2019 is available through on-premises or cloud deployment on desktop, web, or mobile devices. With MicroStrategy’s updated provisioning console, the MicroStrategy Cloud™ console, customers can deploy our platform through Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) or Microsoft Azure, enabling users to get quick access to the powerful services and applications offered by these leading cloud platforms.

MicroStrategy Services™

Through MicroStrategy Consulting™, MicroStrategy Education™, and MicroStrategy Technical Support, MicroStrategy Services advises, assists, and supports our customers in successfully leveraging the MicroStrategy platform to help them realize the vision of the Intelligent Enterprise.

MicroStrategy Consulting

MicroStrategy Consulting provides our customers with assessment, advisory, architecture, and deployment expertise to guide our customers in defining, developing, and delivering core business analytics solutions for their enterprises across key industries. Our consultants work with the backing of the MicroStrategy product engineering, technical support, and account teams. MicroStrategy Consulting operates in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region, with our Global Delivery Center™ located in Warsaw, Poland.

MicroStrategy Education

MicroStrategy Education provides free and paid learning options to help our customers maximize the utility, adoption, and performance of their MicroStrategy deployments. Our Jump Start offering is a free, five-day training program designed to help every MicroStrategy customer hit the ground running. Our paid offerings include a catalog of over 40 multi-level classes tailored for numerous user roles and project-based certification programs to help customers build up teams of trusted MicroStrategy experts to staff their intelligence centers. MicroStrategy Education is available worldwide in multiple languages and includes classroom-based, instructor-led courses, recorded courses, self-paced e-learning modules, customer on-site training, and our Enterprise E-Courseware options for large organizations.  

MicroStrategy Technical Support

MicroStrategy Technical Support is focused on improving the overall customer experience through proactive technical product support for customers and business partners across MicroStrategy’s software products and includes Customer Support Group, a team of Technical Support engineers responsible for providing first-level technical support to customers, business partners, and prospects; Premium Support, a team of Premium Support engineers that provides dedicated technical support to our elite customers and business partners; and Customer Success Management, which manages our support renewal business and our process for renewing software maintenance contracts with customers.

Business Strategy  

Sales and Services

MicroStrategy sells through our dedicated enterprise sales force and channel partners to increase market coverage in both domestic and international markets.  We provide financial incentives for our channel partners to market and distribute our products and services.  We also offer a comprehensive set of educational programs that enhance and certify our partners’ understanding of our software.  In addition, we offer a wide range of services that provide support in the discovery, planning, development, and deployment stages of a MicroStrategy product or service.

Dedicated sales force.  We market our software and services chiefly through our direct sales force.  We have sales offices in locations throughout the world and use distributors in several countries where we do not have sales offices.

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Channel partners.  We have established strategic alliances with third-party vendors to help ensure the success of our customers’ enterprise intelligence initiatives. Our channel partners are system integrators, consulting firms, resellers, solution providers, managed service providers, original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), and technology companies. These firms utilize MicroStrategy platforms for a variety of commercial purposes, and our agreements with them generally provide non-exclusive rights to market our products and services and allow access to our marketing materials, product training, and direct sales force for field-level assistance.

We make significant commitments to our channel partners, including investments in joint development, technical training, certifications, pre-sales and sales enablement, and marketing programs. Through our joint efforts, we believe customers are able to minimize their risk and maximize the return on their business intelligence projects. Our channel partners allow us to leverage sales and service resources and marketing and industry-specific expertise to expand our user base and increase our market coverage.

Marketing

Our marketing programs target the following principal constituencies:

We continually seek to increase our brand awareness by focusing our messaging on the possibilities for value creation, the benefits of using our platform, and competitive differentiators. The channels we use to communicate with these constituencies include digital and social media, user conferences, advertising, direct email, free and evaluation software, industry events, media coverage, mobile application downloads, channel partners, and word-of-mouth and peer references.

Customers

Our customers include leading companies from a wide range of industries, including retail, consulting, technology, manufacturing, finance, banking, insurance, healthcare, education, and telecommunications, as well as the public sector.

Competition

The analytics market is highly competitive and subject to rapidly-changing technology paradigms.  Within the analytics space, we compete with many different types of vendors, including large software vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP, that provide one or more products that directly compete with our products.  We also compete with other analytics software providers, such as Qlik, Tableau Software, and the SAS Institute. Our future success depends on the effectiveness with which we can differentiate our offerings and compete with these vendors and other potential competitors across analytics implementation projects of varying sizes.  

Our ability to compete successfully in our markets depends on a number of factors, both within and outside of our control.  Some of these factors include product deployment options; analytical, mobility, data discovery, and visualization capabilities; performance and scalability; the quality and reliability of our customer service and support; licensing model; and brand recognition.  Failure to compete successfully in any one of these or other areas may reduce the demand for our products, as well as materially adversely affect our revenue from both existing and prospective customers.  

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Key Differentiators

Employees

As of December 31, 2018, we had a total of 2,528 employees, of whom 1,237 were based in the United States and 1,291 were based internationally. Of our 2,528 employees, 707 were engaged in sales and marketing, 716 in research and development, 757 in subscription services, product support, consulting, and education, and 348 in finance, administration, and corporate operations. None of our employees in the United States is represented by a labor union; however, in certain foreign subsidiaries, some employees are members of trade or local unions.  In France, our employees are represented by a works council as required by local law. We have not experienced any work stoppages and consider our relations with our employees to be good.

The following table summarizes employee headcount as of the dates indicated:

 

 

Available Information

Our website is located at www.microstrategy.com.  We make available free of charge, on or through the Investor Relations section of our website (http://ir.microstrategy.com), our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing such reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).  Information found on our website is not part of this Annual Report or any other report filed with the SEC.  The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers, including us, that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov.

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You should carefully consider the risks described below before making an investment decision.  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 currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations.

If any of the following risks occurs, our business, financial condition, or results of operations could be materially adversely affected.  In such case, the market price of our class A common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.

We adopted Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606) and its subsequent amendments (“ASU 2014-09”) effective January 1, 2018 and adjusted our prior period consolidated financial statements to reflect full retrospective adoption. See Note 3, Recent Accounting Standards, to the consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report for a summary of the significant changes in accounting principles and the impact to the Company’s previously reported consolidated financial statements. Where applicable, prior period information in this “Item 1A. Risk Factors” has also been adjusted to reflect the full retrospective adoption of ASU 2014-09.

Our quarterly operating results, revenues, and expenses may fluctuate significantly, which could have an adverse effect on the market price of our stock

For many reasons, including those described below, our operating results, revenues, and expenses have varied in the past and may vary significantly in the future from quarter to quarter. These fluctuations could have an adverse effect on the market price of our class A common stock.

Fluctuations in Quarterly Operating Results. Our quarterly operating results may fluctuate, in part, as a result of:

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Limited Ability to Adjust Expenses. We base our operating expense budgets on expected revenue trends and strategic objectives. Many of our expenses, such as office leases and certain personnel costs, are relatively fixed. We may be unable to adjust spending quickly enough to offset any unexpected revenue shortfall. Accordingly, any shortfall in revenue may cause significant variation in operating results in any quarter. For example, if our revenues in the future are not sufficient to offset our operating expenses, or we are unable to adjust our operating expenses in a timely manner in response to any shortfall in anticipated revenue, we may incur operating losses.

Based on the above factors, we believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operating results are not a good indication of our future performance. It is possible that in one or more future quarters, our operating results may be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors. In that event, the market price of our class A common stock may fall.

The market price of our class A common stock has been and may continue to be volatile

The market price of our class A common stock historically has been volatile and may continue to be volatile. The market price of our class A common stock may fluctuate widely in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include, but are not limited to:

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In addition, the stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of companies in those markets. These broad market and industry factors may seriously harm the market price of our class A common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance.

We may not be able to sustain or increase profitability in the future

We generated net income for each of the fiscal years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016; however, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.  If our revenues are not sufficient to offset our operating expenses, or we are unable to adjust our operating expenses in a timely manner in response to any shortfall in anticipated revenue, our profitability may decrease, we may cease to be profitable, or we may incur operating losses.  As a result, our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

As of December 31, 2018, we had $17.3 million of deferred tax assets, net of a $1.5 million valuation allowance. If we are unable to sustain profitability in the future, we may be required to increase the valuation allowance against these deferred tax assets, which could result in a charge that would materially adversely affect net income in the period in which the charge is incurred.

Economic uncertainty and increased competition for our customers, particularly in the retail industry, could materially adversely affect our business and results of operations

The U.S. and other significant markets have experienced cyclical downturns and worldwide economic conditions remain uncertain. Economic uncertainty and associated macroeconomic conditions make it extremely difficult for our customers and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and could cause our customers to slow spending on our products and services, which could delay and lengthen sales cycles.  Furthermore, during uncertain economic times, our customers may face issues gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could result in an impairment of their ability to make timely payments to us.  If that were to occur, we may be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our results would be negatively impacted.

Furthermore, we have a significant number of customers in the retail industry, which has experienced intense competition and structural changes.  A significant downturn or the intensification of competition in this industry may cause organizations to reduce their capital expenditures in general or specifically reduce their spending on information technology (“IT”).  In addition, customers in this industry may delay or cancel IT projects or seek to lower their costs by renegotiating vendor contracts.  Customers with excess IT resources may choose to develop in-house software solutions rather than obtain those solutions from us.  Consumers have increasingly migrated toward large e-commerce platforms and other online applications.  As a result, the retail industry has experienced consolidation and other ownership changes.  In the future, retailers may further consolidate, undergo restructurings or reorganizations, or realign their affiliations, any of which could decrease the number of competitors within the retail industry, reducing the number of potential customers for our offerings.  Moreover, our competitors may respond to challenging market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers. 

We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown or any subsequent recovery generally, or competitive and structural changes in the retail industry. If the conditions in the general economy and the markets in which we operate worsen from present levels, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

We may have exposure to greater than anticipated tax liabilities

We are subject to income taxes and non-income taxes in a variety of domestic and foreign jurisdictions. Our future income taxes could be materially adversely affected by earnings that are lower than anticipated in jurisdictions where we have lower statutory rates, earnings that are higher than anticipated in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory rates, changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in the amount of unrecognized tax benefits, or changes in tax laws, regulations, accounting principles, or interpretations thereof.

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Further changes in the tax laws of foreign jurisdictions could arise, including as a result of the project undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) to combat base erosion and profit shifting (“BEPS”). The OECD, which represents a coalition of member countries, has issued recommendations that, in some cases, make substantial changes to numerous long-standing tax positions and principles. These changes, many of which have been adopted or are under active consideration by OECD members and/or other countries, could increase tax uncertainty and may adversely affect our provision for income taxes.

In the United States, legislation bringing about broad changes in the existing corporate tax system was enacted in December 2017. Over time, this legislation may result in material impacts to our results of operations and may affect customer behavior and our ability to forecast our effective tax rate. Many aspects of the legislation are unclear at this time and remain subject to pending regulatory and accounting guidance.  As a result, we have not yet been able to determine the full impact of the legislation on our business, operating results, and financial condition. As additional regulatory guidance is issued by the Internal Revenue Service, as accounting treatment is clarified, and as we perform additional analysis on the application of the law, our tax obligations and effective tax rate could be materially affected.

Our determination of our tax liability is subject to review by applicable domestic and foreign tax authorities.  Any adverse outcome of such reviews could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.  The determination of our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities requires significant judgment and, in the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.  Moreover, as a multinational business, we have subsidiaries that engage in many intercompany transactions in a variety of tax jurisdictions where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.

We also have contingent tax liabilities that, in management’s judgment, are not probable of assertion.  If such unasserted contingent liabilities were to be asserted, or become probable of assertion, we may be required to record significant expenses and liabilities in the period in which these liabilities are asserted or become probable of assertion.

As a result of these and other factors, the ultimate amount of tax obligations owed may differ from the amounts recorded in our financial statements and any such difference may materially affect our financial results in future periods in which we change our estimates of our tax obligations or in which the ultimate tax outcome is determined.

If the market for analytics products fails to grow as we expect or if businesses fail to adopt our offerings, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected

Nearly all of our revenues to date have come from sales of analytics products and related technical support, consulting, and education services.  We expect these sales to account for a large portion of our revenues for the foreseeable future.  Although demand for analytics products has grown in recent years, the market for analytics offerings continues to evolve.  Resistance from consumer and privacy groups to commercial collection, use, and sharing of data on spending patterns and other personal behavior (including individuals’ online or offline activities, mobile data, sensor data, social data, web log data, Internet of Things data, and other personal data) has grown in recent years and our customers, potential customers or the public in general may perceive that use of our analytics products could violate individual privacy rights.  In addition, increasing government restrictions on the collection, use, and transfer of personal data could impair the further growth of the market for analytics products.  We cannot be sure that this market will continue to grow or, even if it does grow, that businesses will adopt our solutions.

We have spent, and intend to keep spending, considerable resources to educate potential customers about analytics offerings in general and our offerings in particular.  However, we cannot be sure that these expenditures will help any of our offerings achieve any additional market acceptance.  If the market fails to grow or grows more slowly than we currently expect or businesses fail to adopt our offerings, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

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Our products face intense competition, which may lead to lower prices for our products and services, reduced gross margins, loss of market share, and reduced revenue

The analytics market is highly competitive and subject to rapidly changing technology paradigms.  Within the analytics space, we compete with many different types of vendors, including large software vendors, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP, that provide one or more products that directly compete with our products. We also compete with other analytics software providers, such as Qlik, Tableau Software, and the SAS Institute.  Our future success depends on the effectiveness with which we can differentiate our offerings and compete with these vendors and other potential competitors across analytics implementation projects of varying sizes.  Our ability to compete successfully in our markets depends on a number of factors, both within and outside of our control.  Some of these factors include product deployment options; analytical, mobility, data discovery, and visualization capabilities; performance and scalability; the quality and reliability of our customer service and support; licensing model; and brand recognition.  Failure to compete successfully in any one of these or other areas may reduce the demand for our products, as well as materially adversely affect our revenue from both existing and prospective customers.

Some of our competitors have longer operating histories and significantly greater financial, technical, and marketing resources than we do.  As a result, they may be able to respond more quickly to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements or devote greater resources to the development, promotion, sale, and marketing of their offerings than we can, such as offering certain analytics products free of charge when bundled with other software offerings.  In addition, many of our competitors have strong relationships with current and potential customers, extensive industry and specialized business knowledge, as well as corresponding proprietary technologies that they can leverage, such as multidimensional databases and enterprise resource planning repositories.  As a result, they may be able to prevent us from penetrating new accounts or expanding within existing accounts.

Increased competition may lead to price cuts, reduced gross margins, and loss of market share. We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, and the failure to meet the competitive pressures we face may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Current and future competitors may also make strategic acquisitions or establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with others.  By doing so, these competitors may increase their ability to meet the needs of our potential customers by their expanded offerings.  Our current or prospective channel partners may establish cooperative relationships with our current or future competitors. These relationships may limit our ability to sell our analytics offerings through specific distribution channels. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances among current and future competitors may emerge and rapidly gain significant market share. These developments could limit our ability to obtain revenues from new customers and to sustain software maintenance revenues from our installed customer base.  In addition, basic office productivity software suites, such as Microsoft Office, could evolve to offer advanced analysis and reporting capabilities that may reduce the demand for our analytics offerings.

We depend on revenue from a single suite of products and related services as well as revenue from our installed customer base

Our platform and related services account for a substantial portion of our revenue. Because of this revenue concentration, our business could be harmed by a decline in demand for, or in the adoption or prices of, these products and related services as a result of, among other factors, any change in our pricing or packaging model, increased competition, maturation in the markets for these products, or other risks described in this Annual Report.

We also depend on our installed customer base for a substantial portion of our revenue. We have contracts with our license customers for ongoing support and maintenance, as well as contracts for cloud-based subscription services that provide recurring revenues to us. In addition, our installed customer base has historically generated additional new license and services revenues for us. If our existing customers cancel or fail to renew their service contracts or fail to purchase additional products or services, our revenue could decrease and our operating results could be materially adversely affected.

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If we are unable to develop and release product enhancements and new offerings to respond to rapid technological change in a timely and cost-effective manner, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected

The market for our offerings is characterized by rapid technological change, frequent new product introductions and enhancements, changing customer demands, and evolving industry standards.  The introduction of offerings embodying new technologies can quickly make existing offerings obsolete and unmarketable.  We believe that our future success depends largely on our ability to:

Analytics applications are inherently complex, and it can take a long time and require significant research and development expenditures to develop and test new offerings and product enhancements.  In addition, customers may delay their purchasing decisions because they anticipate that new or enhanced versions of our offerings will soon become available.  We cannot be sure that we will succeed in developing, marketing, and delivering, on a timely and cost-effective basis, new or enhanced offerings that respond to technological change or new customer requirements, nor can we be sure that any new or enhanced offerings will achieve market acceptance.  Moreover, even if we introduce a new offering, we may experience a decline in revenues of our existing offerings that is not fully matched by the new offering’s revenue.  For example, customers may delay making purchases of a new offering to permit them to make a more thorough evaluation of the offering, or until industry and marketplace reviews become widely available.  Some customers may hesitate migrating to a new offering due to concerns regarding the complexity of migration and product infancy issues on performance.  In addition, we may lose existing customers who choose a competitor’s offering rather than migrate to our new offering. This could result in a temporary or permanent revenue shortfall and materially adversely affect our business.

A substantial customer shift in the deployment of MicroStrategy Analytics from a perpetual software license model to our cloud services model could affect the timing of revenue recognition and materially adversely affect our operating results

We offer our analytics platform in the form of a perpetual software license and a cloud-based subscription.  The payment streams and revenue recognition timing for our perpetual software licenses are different from those for our cloud-based subscriptions.  For perpetual software licenses, customers typically pay us a lump sum soon after entering into a software license agreement and revenue is typically recognized upon delivery of the software to the customer.  For cloud-based subscriptions, customers typically make periodic payments over the subscription period and revenue is typically recognized ratably over the subscription period.  As a result, if a substantial number of current or new customers shift to subscribing to our cloud services offerings instead of purchasing perpetual software licenses for MicroStrategy Analytics, the resulting change in payment terms and revenue recognition may materially adversely affect our operating results and cash flows for the reporting periods during which such a shift occurs.

Our investment in new business strategies and initiatives could disrupt the operations of our ongoing business and present risks that we have not adequately anticipated

We have invested, and in the future may invest, in new business strategies and initiatives.  For example, in recent years we have introduced a number of innovative technologies designed to enable companies to capitalize on Big Data, mobile applications, cloud-based services, security, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence trends in the marketplace. These endeavors may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including distraction of management from other business operations, the dedication of significant research and development, sales and marketing, and other resources to these new initiatives at the expense of our other business operations, generation of insufficient revenue to offset expenses associated with new initiatives, incompatibility of our new technologies with third-party platforms, inadequate return of capital, and other risks that we may not have adequately anticipated.  Because new strategies and initiatives are inherently risky, these strategies and initiatives may not be successful and could materially adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

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Business disruptions, including interruptions, delays, or failures of our systems, third-party data center hosting facility or other third-party services, could materially adversely affect our operating results or result in a material weakness in our internal controls that could adversely affect the market price of our stock

A significant portion of our research and development activities or certain other critical business operations are concentrated in facilities in Northern Virginia, China, and Poland.  In addition, we serve our customers and manage certain critical internal processes using a third-party data center hosting facility located in the United States and other third-party services, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud services.  We could experience a disruption or failure of our systems or the third-party hosting facility or other services that we use. Such disruptions or failures could include a natural disaster, fire, cyber-attack, act of terrorism, geopolitical conflict, or other catastrophic event, as well as power outages or telecommunications infrastructure outages, or a decision by one of our third-party service providers to close facilities that we use without adequate notice or to materially change the pricing or terms of their services, or other unanticipated problems with the third-party services that we use, including a failure to meet service standards.

We are a highly automated business and any such disruptions or failures could (i) result in the destruction or disruption of any of our critical business operations, controls or procedures, or IT systems, (ii) severely affect our ability to conduct normal business operations, including delaying completion of sales and provision of services, (iii) result in a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, (iv) cause our customers to terminate their subscriptions, (v) result in our issuing credits to customers or paying penalties or fines, (vi) harm our reputation, (vii) adversely affect our attrition rates or our ability to attract new customers, or (viii) cause our offerings to be perceived as not being secure, any of which could materially adversely affect our future operating results.

For example, as described in “Item 9A. Controls and Procedures,” we have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2018 because of certain material weaknesses in our internal controls. We are implementing remedial measures and, while there can be no assurance that our efforts will be successful, we expect to complete the remediation of these material weaknesses prior to the end of fiscal year ended December 31, 2019. If we are unable to remediate these material weaknesses with respect to future periods or are otherwise unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures, management may need to devote significant resources to improving internal controls, our ability to meet reporting obligations could be adversely affected, and investors’ confidence in our financial statements may be negatively affected, which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and the market price of our stock.

We use channel partners and if we are unable to maintain successful relationships with them, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected

In addition to our direct sales force, we use channel partners such as resellers, value-added resellers, system integrators, consulting firms, OEMs, and technology partners to license and support our products.  For the year ended December 31, 2018, transactions by channel partners for which we recognized revenues accounted for 21.2% of our total product licenses revenues.  Our channel partners may offer customers the products and services of several different companies, including offerings that compete with ours.  Because our channel partners generally do not have exclusive relationships with us, we cannot be certain that they will prioritize or devote adequate resources to selling our products.  Moreover, divergence in strategy or contract defaults by any of these channel partners may materially adversely affect our ability to develop, market, sell, or support our offerings.

Although we believe that direct sales will continue to account for a majority of our product licenses revenues, we seek to maintain a significant level of sales activities through our channel partners.  There can be no assurance that our channel partners will continue to cooperate with us.  In addition, actions taken or not taken by such parties may materially adversely affect us. Our ability to achieve revenue growth in the future will depend in part on our ability to maintain successful relationships with our channel partners. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with these channel partners, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

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In addition, we rely on our channel partners to operate in accordance with the terms of their contractual agreements with us.  For example, some of our agreements with our channel partners prescribe the terms and conditions pursuant to which they are authorized to resell or distribute our software and offer technical support and related services.  If our channel partners do not comply with their contractual obligations to us, our business, operating results, and financial condition may be materially adversely affected. We also rely on our channel partners to operate in accordance with applicable laws and regulatory requirements. If they fail to do so, we may need to incur significant costs in responding to investigations or enforcement actions or paying penalties assessed by the applicable authorities.

Our recognition of deferred revenue and advance payments is subject to future performance obligations and may not be representative of revenues for succeeding periods

Our current and non-current deferred revenue and advance payments totaled $183.0 million as of December 31, 2018.  The timing and ultimate recognition of our deferred revenue and advance payments depend on various factors, including our performance of various service obligations.

Because of the possibility of customer changes or delays in customer development or implementation schedules or budgets, and the need for us to satisfactorily perform product support and other services, deferred revenue and advance payments at any particular date may not be representative of actual revenue for any succeeding period.

Our international operations are complex and expose us to risks that could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition

We receive a significant portion of our total revenues from international sales and conduct our business activities in various foreign countries, including some emerging markets where we have limited experience, where the challenges of conducting our business can be significantly different from those we have faced in more developed markets, and where business practices may create internal control risks.  International revenues accounted for 42.3%, 41.8%, and 39.2% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016, respectively. Our international operations require significant management attention and financial resources.

There are certain risks inherent in our international business activities, including:

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Disruptions to trade, weakening of economic conditions, economic and legal uncertainties, or changes in currency rates may adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.  For example, we may face heightened risks in connection with our international operations as a result of the impending withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, commonly referred to as “Brexit.”  The future effects of Brexit are uncertain and will depend on any agreements the United Kingdom makes to retain access to E.U. markets either during a transitional period or more permanently.  Brexit could, among other outcomes, disrupt the free movement of goods, services and people between the United Kingdom and the European Union and significantly disrupt trade between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Brexit could also lead to legal uncertainty and potentially divergent national laws and regulations, including tax laws and regulations, as the United Kingdom determines which E.U. laws to replace or replicate. In addition, the Trump administration has called for substantial changes to U.S. foreign trade policy, including the imposition of greater restrictions on international trade and significant increases in tariffs on goods imported into the United States, and has increased tariffs on certain goods imported into the United States from a number of foreign markets, following which retaliatory tariffs have been imposed on exports of certain U.S. goods to those markets.  These tariffs and any further escalation of protectionist trade measures could adversely affect the markets in which we sell our products and services and, in turn, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

In addition, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”) brought about, among other items, corporate income tax rate changes, the modification or elimination of certain tax incentives, changes to the existing regime for taxing overseas earnings, and measures to prevent BEPS. The changes to the U.S. taxation of our international income could have a material effect on our future operating results. From time to time, we may undertake various potential intercompany transactions and legal entity restructurings that involve our international subsidiaries. We consider various factors in evaluating these potential transactions and restructurings, including the alignment of our corporate structure with our organizational objectives, the operational and tax efficiency of our corporate structure, and the long-term cash flows and cash needs of our business. Such transactions and restructurings could negatively impact our overall tax rate and result in additional tax liabilities.

Moreover, compliance with foreign and U.S. laws and regulations that are applicable to our international operations is complex and may increase our cost of doing business in international jurisdictions, and our international operations could expose us to fines and penalties if we fail to comply with these regulations. These laws and regulations include anti-bribery laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act, local laws prohibiting corrupt payments to government officials, and local laws relating to procurement, contracting, and antitrust. These laws and regulations also include import and export requirements and economic and trade sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.S. Department of Commerce based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign states, organizations, and individuals.  Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to help ensure compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that our employees, channel partners, and other persons with whom we do business will not take actions in violation of our policies or these laws. Any violations of these laws could subject us to civil or criminal penalties, including substantial fines or prohibitions on our ability to offer our products and services to one or more countries, and could also materially damage our reputation and our brand.

These factors may have a material adverse effect on our future sales and, consequently, on our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We may lose sales, or sales may be delayed, due to the long sales and implementation cycles of certain of our products and services, which could reduce our revenues

To date, our customers have typically invested substantial time, money, and other resources, and involved many people in the decision to license our software products and purchase our related services.  As a result, we may wait nine months or more after the first contact with a customer for that customer to place an order while it seeks internal approval for the purchase of our products or services.  During this long sales cycle, events may occur that affect the size and/or timing of the order or even cause it to be canceled.  For example, our competitors may introduce new offerings, or the customer’s own budget and purchasing priorities may change.

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Even after an order is placed, the time it takes to deploy our products and complete services engagements can vary widely.  Implementing some of our offerings can take several months, depending on the customer’s needs, and may begin only with a pilot program.  It may be difficult to deploy our products if the customer has complicated deployment requirements, which typically involve integrating databases, hardware, and software from different vendors.  If a customer hires a third party to deploy our products, we cannot be sure that our products will be deployed successfully.

Our results in any particular period may depend on the number and volume of large transactions in that period and these transactions may involve lengthier, more complex, and more unpredictable sales cycles than other transactions

As existing and potential customers seek to standardize on a single analytics vendor or require greater vendor capacity to meet their growing analytics needs, our business may experience larger transactions at the enterprise level and larger transactions may account for a greater proportion of our business. The presence or absence of one or more large transactions in a particular period may have a material positive or negative effect on our revenue and operating results for that period.  For the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016, our top three product licenses transactions with recognized revenue totaled $7.7 million, $5.5 million, and $11.3 million, respectively, or 8.7%, 5.9%, and 9.8% of total product licenses revenues, respectively.  These transactions represent significant business and financial decisions for our customers, require considerable effort on the part of customers to assess alternative products, and often require additional levels of management approval.  In addition, large transactions are often more complex than smaller transactions.  These factors generally lengthen the typical sales cycle and increase the risk that customers may postpone or delay purchasing decisions from one period to a subsequent period or that customers will alter their purchasing requirements.  We may also encounter greater competition and pricing pressure in larger transactions, and the sales effort and service delivery scope for larger transactions may require us to use additional resources to execute the transactions.  These factors could result in lower than anticipated revenue and earnings for a particular period or lower estimated revenue and earnings in future periods.

We face a variety of risks in doing business with U.S. and foreign federal, state, and local governments and government agencies, including risks related to the procurement process, budget constraints and cycles, termination of contracts, and compliance with government contracting requirements

Our customers include the U.S. government and a number of state and local governments and government agencies.  There are a variety of risks in doing business with government entities, including:

Procurement.  Contracting with public sector customers is highly competitive and can be time-consuming and expensive, requiring us to incur significant up-front time and expense without any assurance that we will win a contract.

Budgetary Constraints and Cycles.  Demand and payment for our products and services are impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding availability, with funding reductions or delays adversely impacting public sector demand for our products and services.

Termination of Contracts.  Public sector customers often have contractual or other legal rights to terminate current contracts for convenience or due to a default. If a contract is terminated for convenience, which can occur if the customer’s needs change, we may only be able to collect fees for products or services delivered prior to termination and settlement expenses.  If a contract is terminated due to a default, we may not recover even those amounts, and we may be liable for excess costs incurred by the customer for procuring alternative products or services.

Compliance with Government Contracting Requirements.  Government contractors are required to comply with a variety of complex laws, regulations, and contractual provisions relating to the formation, administration, or performance of government contracts that give public sector customers substantial rights and remedies, many of which are not typically found in commercial contracts.  These may include rights with respect to price protection, the accuracy of information provided to the government, contractor compliance with socio-economic policies, and other terms that are particular to government contracts.  Federal, state, and local governments and government agencies routinely investigate and audit contractors for compliance with these requirements.  If, as a result of an audit or review, it is determined that we have failed to comply with these requirements, we may be subject to civil and criminal penalties and administrative sanctions, including termination of contracts, forfeiture of profits, costs associated with the triggering of price reduction clauses, fines, and suspensions or debarment from future government business, and we may suffer harm to our reputation.

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Our customers also include a number of foreign governments and government agencies.  Similar procurement, budgetary, contract, and audit risks also apply to our doing business with these entities.  In addition, compliance with complex regulations and contracting provisions in a variety of jurisdictions can be expensive and consume significant management resources.  In certain jurisdictions, our ability to win business may be constrained by political and other factors unrelated to our competitive position in the market.  Each of these difficulties could materially adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We depend on technology licensed to us by third parties, and the loss of this technology could impair our software, delay implementation of our offerings, or force us to pay higher license fees

We license third-party technologies that are incorporated into or utilized by our existing offerings. There can be no assurance that the licenses for such third-party technologies will not be terminated or that we will be able to license third-party software for future offerings. In addition, we may be unable to renegotiate acceptable third-party license terms, or we may be subject to infringement liability if third-party software that we license is found to infringe intellectual property rights of others. Changes in or the loss of third-party licenses could lead to a material increase in our costs or to our software offerings becoming inoperable or their performance being materially reduced.  As a result, we may need to incur additional development costs to help ensure continued performance of our offerings, and we may experience a decreased demand for our offerings.

If we are unable to recruit or retain skilled personnel, or if we lose the services of our Chairman of the Board of Directors, President & Chief Executive Officer, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected

Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, train, assimilate, and retain highly skilled personnel.  Competition for these employees is intense, and competition may be amplified by evolving restrictions on immigration, travel, or availability of visas for skilled technology workers.  We may not be able to retain our current key employees or attract, train, assimilate, and retain other highly skilled personnel in the future.  Our future success also depends in large part on the continued service of Michael J. Saylor, our Chairman of the Board of Directors, President & Chief Executive Officer.  If we lose the services of Mr. Saylor, or if we are unable to attract, train, assimilate, and retain the highly skilled personnel we need, our business, operating results, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

The emergence of new industry standards may materially adversely affect the demand for our existing offerings

The emergence of new industry standards in related fields may materially adversely affect the demand for our existing offerings.  This could happen if new web standards and technologies or new standards in the field of operating system support emerge that are incompatible with customer deployments of our software offerings.  For example, if we are unable to adapt our software offerings on a timely basis to new standards in database access technology, the ability of our software offerings to access customer databases could be impaired.

The nature of our software offerings makes them particularly susceptible to undetected errors, bugs, or security vulnerabilities, which could cause problems with how the offerings perform and, in turn, reduce demand for our offerings, reduce our revenue, and lead to product liability claims against us

Software as complex as ours may contain undetected errors, bugs, or security vulnerabilities.  Although we test our software offerings extensively, we have in the past discovered software errors, bugs, or security vulnerabilities in our offerings after their introduction.  Despite testing by us and our current and potential customers, errors, bugs, or security vulnerabilities may be found in new offerings or releases after commercial shipments begin.  This could result in lost revenue, damage to our reputation, or delays in market acceptance, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.  We may also need to expend resources and capital to correct these defects.

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Our agreements with customers typically contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to product liability, warranty, and other claims.  It is possible, however, that these provisions may not be effective under the laws of certain domestic or international jurisdictions and we may be exposed to product liability, warranty, and other claims.  A successful product liability claim against us could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.

Changes in laws or regulations relating to privacy or the collection, processing, disclosure, storage, localization, or transmission of personal data, or any actual or perceived failure by us or our third-party service providers to comply with such laws and regulations, contractual obligations, or applicable privacy policies, could materially adversely affect our business

Aspects of our business, including our cloud services and digital identity offerings, involve collecting, processing, disclosing, storing, and transmitting personal data, which are subject to certain privacy policies, contractual obligations, and U.S. federal, U.S. state, and foreign laws, regulations, and directives relating to privacy and data protection.  The amount of customer and employee data that we store through our cloud services offerings, networks, and other systems, including personal data, is increasing.  In addition, the types of data subject to protection as personal data in the European Union, the United States, and elsewhere, including Asia and Latin America, have been expanding.  In recent years, the collection and use of personal data by companies have come under increased regulatory and public scrutiny, especially in relation to the collection and processing of sensitive data, such as healthcare, biometric, genetic, financial services, and government data, children’s data, precise location data, and data regarding a person’s race or ethnic origins, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, or sex life or sexual orientation. For example, in the United States, protected health information is subject to HIPAA.  HIPAA has been supplemented by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act with the result of increased civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance.  Entities performing certain functions that engage in creating, receiving, maintaining, or transmitting protected health information provided by covered entities and other business associates are directly subject to enforcement under HIPAA.  Our access to protected health information through our cloud services offerings triggers obligations to comply with certain privacy rules and data security requirements under HIPAA.  

Any systems failure or security breach that results in the release of, or unauthorized access to, personal data, or any failure or perceived failure by us or our third-party service providers to comply with applicable privacy policies, contractual obligations, or any applicable laws or regulations relating to privacy or data protection, could result in proceedings against us by domestic or foreign government entities or others, including private plaintiffs in litigation.  Such proceedings could result in the imposition of sanctions, fines, penalties, liabilities, and/or government orders requiring that we change our data practices, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, reputation, and financial condition.

Various U.S. federal, U.S. state, and foreign legislative, regulatory, or other government bodies may enact new or additional laws or regulations, or issue rulings that invalidate prior laws or regulations, concerning privacy, data storage, data protection, and cross-border transfer of data that could materially adversely impact our business.  For example, in October 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling that declared the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework invalid.  Following this ruling, U.S. and European authorities agreed to, and in July 2016 the European Commission formally adopted, a new mechanism for lawfully transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States, referred to as the “Privacy Shield.”  In addition, in April 2016, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union formally adopted a comprehensive general data protection regulation (“GDPR”), which took effect in May 2018.  GDPR governs data practices and privacy, establishes new requirements regarding the handling and security of personal data, requires disclosure of data breaches to individuals, customers, and data protection authorities in certain circumstances, requires companies to honor data subjects’ requests relating to their personal data, permits regulators to impose fines of up to 4% of global annual revenue, and establishes a private right of action.  Furthermore, a new ePrivacy Regulation, regulating electronic communications, was proposed in 2017 and is under consideration by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council.

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In addition, we may be subject to a cybersecurity law that went into effect in China in June 2017 that has uncertain but broad application and imposes a number of new privacy and data security obligations, including a data localization requirement for certain types of data.

The state of California has also adopted a new comprehensive privacy law, the California Consumer Protection Act (“CCPA”), that is modeled largely on GDPR and is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2020.  The final scope of the CCPA remains unclear at this time since the California Attorney General is early in the process of initiating rulemaking proceedings pursuant to the CCPA.  If the CCPA takes effect in its current form, it will be enforceable primarily by the California Attorney General, with private rights of action for consumers being permissible only in the event of a data breach.

Furthermore, the U.S. Congress is considering comprehensive privacy legislation.  At this time, it is unclear whether it will in fact pass such a law and if so, when and what it will require and prohibit.  Moreover, it is not clear whether any such legislation would give the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) any new authority to impose civil penalties for violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act, or whether the U.S. Congress will grant the FTC rulemaking authority over privacy and information security.

Complying with these and other changing requirements could cause us or our customers to incur substantial costs or pay substantial fines or penalties, require us to change our business practices, require us to take on more onerous obligations in our contracts, or limit our ability to provide certain products and services in certain jurisdictions, any of which could materially adversely affect our business and operating results.  In addition, the Privacy Shield, as well as other mechanisms for lawfully transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States and certain other countries, are being challenged in European courts, which could lead to uncertainty about the legality of such transfers, or burdensome or inconsistent legal requirements.  The Privacy Shield is also subject to annual review by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which could result in modifications to the Privacy Shield or its enforcement, or even its invalidation.  New laws or regulations restricting or limiting the collection or use of mobile data could also reduce demand for certain of our services or require changes to our business practices, which could materially adversely affect our business and operating results.

If we or our third-party service providers experience a security breach and unauthorized parties obtain access to our customers’, prospects’, vendors’, or channel partners’ data, our data, or our cloud services offerings, networks, or other systems, our offerings may be perceived as not being secure, our reputation may be harmed, demand for our offerings may be reduced, our operations may be disrupted, we may incur significant legal and financial liabilities, and our business could be materially adversely affected

As part of our business, we process, store, and transmit our customers’, prospects’, vendors’, and channel partners’ information and data as well as our own, including in our cloud services offerings, networks, and other systems.  There can be no assurance that any security measures that we or our third-party service providers have implemented will be effective against all current or future security threats.  For example, security measures may be breached as a result of technological error, computer viruses, or third-party action, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers, physical break-ins, the actions of state actors, industrial espionage, fraudulent inducement of employees, customers, or channel partners to disclose sensitive information such as user names or passwords, and employee, customer, or channel partner error or malfeasance.  We have experienced attempts by third parties to identify and exploit product and service vulnerabilities, penetrate or bypass our security measures, and gain unauthorized access to our or our customers’ or service providers’ cloud offerings, networks, and other systems.  

A security breach could result in unauthorized access to or disclosure, modification, misuse, loss, or destruction of our customers’, prospects’, vendors’, or channel partners’ data, our data (including our proprietary information, intellectual property, or trade secrets), or our cloud services offerings, networks, or other systems.  Because there are many different security breach techniques and such techniques continue to evolve, we may be unable to anticipate, detect, or mitigate attempted security breaches and implement adequate preventative measures.  Third parties may also conduct attacks designed to prevent access to critical data or systems through ransomware or temporarily deny customers access to our cloud services.  

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Any security breach or successful denial of service attack could result in a loss of customer confidence in the security of our offerings and damage to our brand, reduce the demand for our offerings, disrupt our normal business operations, require us to spend material resources to investigate or correct the breach, require us to notify affected customers or individuals and/or applicable regulators and others, and provide identity theft protection services to individuals under applicable laws, expose us to legal liabilities, including litigation, regulatory enforcement, and indemnity obligations, and materially adversely affect our revenue and operating results.  These risks will increase as we continue to grow the number and scale of our cloud-based offerings, and process, store, and transmit increasingly large amounts of our customers’, prospects’, vendors’, channel partners’, and our own information and data, which may include proprietary or confidential data or personal or identifying information.  Moreover, if a high-profile security breach occurs with respect to an industry peer, our customers and potential customers may lose trust in the security of business intelligence or analytics platforms generally, which could adversely impact our ability to retain existing customers or attract new ones.

Our intellectual property is valuable, and any inability to protect it could reduce the value of our products, services, and brand

We rely on a combination of copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, confidentiality procedures, and contractual commitments to protect our intellectual property worldwide. Despite our efforts, these measures can only provide limited protection. Unauthorized third parties may try to copy or reverse engineer portions of our products or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property. Any intellectual property owned by us may be invalidated, circumvented, or challenged. Any of our pending or future intellectual property applications, whether or not currently being challenged, may not be issued with the scope we seek, if at all. Moreover, amendments to and developing jurisprudence regarding U.S. and international law may affect our ability to protect our intellectual property and defend against claims of infringement. In addition, although we generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees and contractors, our former employees and contractors may seek employment with our business partners, customers, or competitors, and there can be no assurance that the confidential nature of our intellectual property will be maintained. Furthermore, the laws of some countries do not provide the same level of protection of our intellectual property as do the laws of the United States. If we cannot protect our intellectual property against unauthorized copying or use, we may not remain competitive.

Third parties may claim we infringe their intellectual property rights

We periodically receive notices from third parties claiming we are infringing their intellectual property rights, principally patent and trademark rights. We expect the number of such claims will increase as we continue to expand our offerings and branding, the number of offerings and level of competition in our industry segments grow, the functionality of offerings overlaps, and the volume of issued patents, patent applications, and trademark registrations continues to increase. Responding to any infringement claim, regardless of its validity, could:

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Additionally, while we monitor our use of third-party software, including open source software, we cannot assure you that our processes for controlling such use in our products will be effective.  If we inadvertently embed certain types of open source software into one or more of our products, fail to comply with the terms and conditions associated with the use of various open source software, or if third-party software that we license is found to infringe intellectual property rights of others, we could subject ourselves to infringement liability and be required to re-engineer our products, discontinue the sale of our products if re-engineering could not be accomplished on a timely or cost-effective basis, or make available to certain third parties or generally available, in source code form, our proprietary code, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

If a successful infringement claim is made against us and we fail to develop or license a substitute technology or brand name, as applicable, our business, results of operations, financial condition, or cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Because of the rights of our two classes of common stock and because we are controlled by Michael J. Saylor, who beneficially owns the majority of our class B common stock, Mr. Saylor could transfer control of MicroStrategy to a third party without the approval of our Board of Directors or our other stockholders, prevent a third party from acquiring us, or limit your ability to influence corporate matters

We have two classes of common stock: class A common stock and class B common stock.  Holders of our class A common stock generally have the same rights as holders of our class B common stock, except that holders of class A common stock have one vote per share while holders of class B common stock have ten votes per share.  As of February 11, 2019, holders of our class B common stock owned 2,035,184 shares of class B common stock, or 71.2% of the total voting power.  As of February 11, 2019, Mr. Saylor, our Chairman of the Board of Directors, President & Chief Executive Officer, beneficially owned 2,011,668 shares of class B common stock, or 70.4% of the total voting power.  Accordingly, Mr. Saylor can control MicroStrategy through his ability to determine the outcome of elections of our directors, amend our certificate of incorporation and by-laws, and take other actions requiring the vote or consent of stockholders, including mergers, going-private transactions, and other extraordinary transactions and their terms.

Our certificate of incorporation allows holders of class B common stock to transfer shares of class B common stock, subject to the approval of stockholders holding a majority of the outstanding class B common stock.  Mr. Saylor or a group of stockholders holding a majority of the outstanding class B common stock could, without the approval of our Board of Directors or our other stockholders, transfer voting control of MicroStrategy to a third party.  Such a transfer of control could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.  Mr. Saylor or a group of stockholders holding a majority of the outstanding class B common stock could also prevent a change of control of MicroStrategy, regardless of whether holders of class A common stock might otherwise receive a premium for their shares over the then current market price. In addition, this concentrated control limits stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and, as a result, we may take actions that our non-controlling stockholders do not view as beneficial or that conflict with their interests.  As a result, the market price of our class A common stock could be materially adversely affected.

Our status as a “controlled company” could make our class A common stock less attractive to some investors or otherwise materially adversely affect our stock price

Because we qualify as a “controlled company” under the corporate governance rules for Nasdaq-listed companies, we are not required to have independent directors comprise a majority of our Board of Directors. Additionally, our Board of Directors is not required to have an independent compensation or nominating committee, or to have the independent directors exercise the nominating function. We are also not required to have the compensation of our executive officers be determined by a compensation committee of independent directors.  In addition, we are not required to empower our Compensation Committee with the authority to engage the services of any compensation consultants, legal counsel, or other advisors, or to have the Compensation Committee assess the independence of compensation consultants, legal counsel, and other advisors that it engages.

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In light of our status as a controlled company, our Board of Directors has determined not to establish an independent nominating committee or have its independent directors exercise the nominating function and has elected instead to have the Board of Directors be directly responsible for nominating members of the Board.  A majority of our Board of Directors is currently comprised of independent directors, and our Board of Directors has established a Compensation Committee comprised entirely of independent directors. The Compensation Committee determines the compensation of our Chief Executive Officer.  However, our Board of Directors has authorized our Chief Executive Officer to determine the compensation of executive officers other than himself, rather than having such compensation determined by the Compensation Committee, except that certain performance-based executive officer compensation is determined by the Compensation Committee.  Awards under our 2013 Stock Incentive Plan (as amended, the “2013 Equity Plan”) are also approved by the Compensation Committee.  Additionally, while our Compensation Committee is empowered with the authority to retain and terminate outside counsel, compensation consultants, and other experts or consultants, it is not required to assess their independence.

Although currently a majority of our Board of Directors is comprised of independent directors and the Compensation Committee is comprised entirely of independent directors, we may elect in the future not to have independent directors constitute a majority of the Board of Directors or the Compensation Committee, have our Chief Executive Officer’s compensation determined by a compensation committee of independent directors, or have a compensation committee of the Board of Directors at all.

Accordingly, should the interests of our controlling stockholder differ from those of other stockholders, the other stockholders may not have the same protections that are afforded to stockholders of companies that are required to follow all of the corporate governance rules for Nasdaq-listed companies. Our status as a controlled company could make our class A common stock less attractive to some investors or otherwise materially adversely affect our stock price.

 

 

None.

 

 

As of December 31, 2018, we leased approximately 214,000 square feet of office space at a location in Northern Virginia that began serving as our corporate headquarters in October 2010 and was to expire in December 2020. In January 2018, we amended the lease to extend the lease term through December 2030.  The amended lease provides for certain tenant allowances and incentives.  

In addition, we lease offices in U.S. and foreign locations for our services and support, sales and marketing, research and development, and administrative personnel. As of December 31, 2018, we leased approximately 27,000 square feet of office space in the United States, in addition to our corporate headquarters, and approximately 225,000 square feet of office space in various foreign locations.

 

 

We are involved in various legal proceedings arising in the normal course of business.  Although the outcomes of these legal proceedings are inherently difficult to predict, we do not expect the resolution of these legal proceedings to have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations, or cash flows.

 

 

Not applicable.

 

 

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PART II

 

Our class A common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “MSTR.”  There is no established public trading market for our class B common stock. As of February 11, 2019, there were approximately 1,349 stockholders of record of our class A common stock and three stockholders of record of our class B common stock.

Holders of our class A common stock generally have the same rights as holders of our class B common stock, except that holders of class A common stock have one vote per share while holders of class B common stock have ten votes per share.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on either our class A or class B common stock and have no current plans to declare or pay any such dividends.

Information regarding our equity compensation plans and the securities authorized for issuance thereunder is incorporated herein by reference to “Part III. Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.”

The following table provides information about our repurchases of equity securities that are registered by us pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act during the periods indicated:

 

 

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Performance Graph

The following graph compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our class A common stock from December 31, 2013 (the last trading day before the beginning of our fifth preceding fiscal year) to December 31, 2018 (the last trading day of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018) with the cumulative total return of (i) the Total Return Index for The Nasdaq Stock Market (U.S. Companies) (the “Nasdaq Composite Index”) and (ii) the Nasdaq Computer Index.  The graph assumes the investment of $100.00 on December 31, 2013 in our class A common stock, the Nasdaq Composite Index, and the Nasdaq Computer Index, and assumes that any dividends are reinvested. Measurement points are December 31, 2013, December 31, 2014, December 31, 2015, December 30, 2016, December 29, 2017, and December 31, 2018.

 

 

 

 

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The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto, and other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report.

As discussed in Note 3, Recent Accounting Standards, to the consolidated financial statements, we adopted ASU 2014-09 and its subsequent amendments effective as of January 1, 2018 and restated certain prior period amounts. In the selected consolidated financial data below, we have restated our Statements of Operations Data for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, and our Balance Sheet Data as of December 31, 2017 and 2016.  Data for preceding years are not directly comparable as they have not been restated to reflect the adoption of ASU 2014-09.  

 

 

 

 

 

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Forward-Looking Information

This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Exchange Act.  For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including without limitation, certain statements regarding industry prospects and our results of operations or financial position, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The important factors discussed under “Part I. Item 1A. Risk Factors,” among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements made herein and presented elsewhere by management from time to time. Such forward-looking statements represent management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Investors are warned that actual results may differ from management’s expectations.

Adoption of ASU 2014-09

We adopted ASU 2014-09 and its subsequent amendments effective January 1, 2018 and adjusted our prior period consolidated financial statements to reflect full retrospective adoption. See Note 3, Recent Accounting Standards, to the consolidated financial statements for a summary of the significant changes in accounting principles and the impact to the Company’s previously reported consolidated financial statements. Where applicable, prior period information within this “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” has also been adjusted to reflect the full retrospective adoption of ASU 2014-09.

Overview

 

MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise analytics and mobility software. We are one of the largest independent, publicly-traded analytics vendors as measured by annual revenue. Our customers include leading companies from a wide range of industries, including retail, consulting, technology, manufacturing, finance, banking, insurance, healthcare, education, and telecommunications, as well as the public sector.

The analytics market is highly competitive. Our success depends on the effectiveness with which we can differentiate our products from those offered by large software vendors that provide products across multiple lines of business, including one or more products that directly compete with our products, and other analytics vendors across large, mid-sized, and small opportunities. We believe a key differentiator of MicroStrategy is our offering of a single, comprehensive enterprise platform that uniquely features HyperIntelligence, transformational mobility, and federated analytics, which can be deployed on-premises or on multiple private and public cloud platforms.

In 2018, we continued to innovate our platform by focusing on making it more usable, powerful, scalable, flexible, and secure. These innovations included:

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The following table sets forth certain operating highlights (in thousands) for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016:

 

 

As part of our efforts to take greater advantage of the opportunities in the market and grow our market share, we expect to further increase research and development expenditures as we invest in our technology products and personnel in future periods.

As discussed in Note 9, Share-based Compensation, to the consolidated financial statements, we have outstanding stock options to purchase shares of our class A common stock and certain other stock-based awards under our 2013 Equity Plan.  Share-based compensation expense (in thousands) from these awards was recognized in the following operating expense line items in our Consolidated Statements of Operations for the periods indicated:

 

 

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As of December 31, 2018, we estimated that approximately $34.2 million of additional share-based compensation expense for awards granted under the 2013 Equity Plan will be recognized over a remaining weighted average period of 3.0 years.  

We base our internal operating expense forecasts on expected revenue trends and strategic objectives.  Many of our expenses, such as office leases and certain personnel costs, are relatively fixed.  Accordingly, any shortfall in revenue may cause significant variation in our operating results.  We therefore believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operating results may not be a good indication of our future performance.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We are providing supplemental financial measures for income from operations that excludes the impact of our share-based compensation arrangements and restructuring activities, and for net income and diluted earnings per share that exclude the impact from the Tax Act. These supplemental financial measures are not measurements of financial performance under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) and, as a result, these supplemental financial measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.  Management uses these non-GAAP financial measures internally to help understand, manage, and evaluate our business performance and to help make operating decisions. We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures are also useful to investors and analysts in comparing our performance across reporting periods on a consistent basis because in the case of the supplemental measure for income from operations, it excludes a significant non-cash expense that we believe is not reflective of our general business performance and restructuring charges that we believe are not reflective of ongoing operating results, and in the case of the supplemental measures for net income and diluted earnings per share, they exclude one-time tax charges and adjustments resulting from the Tax Act.  In addition, accounting for share-based compensation arrangements requires significant management judgment and the resulting expense could vary significantly in comparison to other companies.  Therefore, we believe the use of these non-GAAP financial measures can also facilitate comparison of our operating results to those of our competitors.

Non-GAAP financial measures are subject to material limitations as they are not in accordance with, or a substitute for, measurements prepared in accordance with GAAP.  For example, we expect that share-based compensation expense, which is excluded from our non-GAAP financial measure, will continue to be a significant recurring expense over the coming years and is an important part of the compensation provided to certain employees, officers, and directors.  Our non-GAAP financial measures are not meant to be considered in isolation and should be read only in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP.  We rely primarily on such consolidated financial statements to understand, manage, and evaluate our business performance, and use the non-GAAP financial measures only supplementally.

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The following is a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures (in thousands, except per share data) for the periods indicated:

 

 

Critical Accounting Policies

Our discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based on our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP.

The preparation of our consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, and equity, the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period.  In particular, estimates relating to revenue recognition have a material impact on our financial statements.  Actual results and outcomes could differ from these estimates and assumptions.

Revenue Recognition. We adopted ASU 2014-09 effective as of January 1, 2018 and have adjusted our prior period consolidated financial statements to reflect full retrospective adoption.  See Note 3, Recent Accounting Standards, to the consolidated financial statements for a summary of the significant changes in accounting principles and the impact to our previously reported consolidated financial statements.

Under ASU 2014-09, we recognize revenue using a five-step model:

We have elected to exclude taxes assessed by government authorities in determining the transaction price, and therefore revenue is recognized net of taxes collected from customers.

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Performance Obligations and Timing of Revenue Recognition

We primarily sell goods and services that fall into the categories discussed below. Each category contains one or more performance obligations that are either (i) capable of being distinct (i.e., the customer can benefit from the good or service on its own or together with readily available resources, including those purchased separately from us) and distinct within the context of the contract (i.e., separately identifiable from other promises in the contract) or (ii) a series of distinct goods or services that are substantially the same and have the same pattern of transfer to the customer.  Aside from our term and perpetual software licenses, which are delivered at a point in time, the majority of our services are delivered over time.

Product Licenses

We sell different types of on-premise business intelligence software, licensed on a term or perpetual basis.  Although license arrangements are sold with product support, the software is fully functional at the outset of the arrangement and is considered a distinct performance obligation.  Revenue from product license sales is recognized when control of the software license has transferred to the customer, which is the later of delivery or commencement of the license term.  We may also sell through resellers and OEMs who purchase our products for resale.  In reseller arrangements, revenue is recognized when control of the product is transferred to the end user.  In OEM arrangements, revenue is recognized upon delivery to the OEM.

Subscription Services

We also sell access to our software through a subscription-based cloud offering, wherein customers access the software through a third-party hosting service. Control of the software itself does not transfer to the customer under this arrangement and is not considered a separate performance obligation.  Subscription services are regularly sold on a standalone basis with telephone support only.  Revenue related to this subscription service is recognized on a straight-line basis over the contract period, which is the period over which the customer has continuous access to the software.

Product Support

In all product license arrangements, customers are required to purchase a standard product support package and may also purchase a premium product support package for a fixed annual fee.  All product support packages include both technical support and when-and-if-available software upgrades, which are treated as a single performance obligation as they are considered a series of distinct services that are substantially the same and have the same duration and measure of progress.  Revenue from product support is recognized on a straight-line basis over the contract period, which is the period over which the customer has continuous access to product support.

Consulting Services

We sell consulting services to help customers plan and execute deployment of our software.  Customers are not required to use consulting services to fully benefit from the software license.  Consulting services are regularly sold on a standalone basis and either (i) prepaid upfront or (ii) sold on a time and materials basis.  Consulting arrangements are each considered separate performance obligations because they do not integrate with each other or with other products and services to deliver a combined output to the customer, do not modify or customize (or are not modified or customized by) each other or other products and services, and do not affect the customer’s ability to use the other consulting offerings or other products and services.  Revenue under consulting arrangements is recognized over time as services are delivered.  For time and materials-based consulting arrangements, we have elected the practical expedient of recognizing revenue upon invoicing since the invoiced amount corresponds directly to the value of our service to date.  

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Education Services

We sell various education and training services to our customers. Education services are sold on a standalone basis under three different arrangements: (i) prepaid bulk training units that may be redeemed on training courses based on standard redemption rates, (ii) an annual subscription to unlimited training courses, and (iii) individual courses purchased a la carte.  Education arrangements are each considered separate performance obligations because they do not integrate with each other or with other products and services to deliver a combined output to the customer, do not modify or customize (or are not modified or customized by) each other or other products and services, and do not affect the customer’s ability to use the other education offerings or other products and services. Revenue on prepaid bulk training units and individual course purchases are recognized when the courses are delivered. Revenue on the annual subscription is recognized on a straight-line basis over the contract period, which is the period over which the customer has continuous access to unlimited training courses.

See Note 13, Segment Information, to the consolidated financial statements for information regarding total revenues by geographic region.

Significant Judgments and Estimates

The adoption of ASU 2014-09 requires us to make significant judgments to determine the transaction price of a contract and subsequently allocate the transaction price based on an estimated standalone selling price (“SSP”). We are also required to make significant judgements with respect to capitalizing incremental costs to obtain a customer contract and determining the subsequent amortization period. These significant judgments and estimates are discussed further below.

Determining the Transaction Price

The transaction price includes both fixed and variable consideration. Variable consideration is included in the transaction price to the extent it is probable that a significant reversal will not occur.  The amount of variable consideration excluded from the transaction price was not material for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Our estimates of variable consideration are also subject to subsequent true-up adjustments and may result in changes to our transaction prices, but such true-up adjustments are not expected to be material.  We have the following sources of variable consideration:

 

 

 

 

We provide a standard software assurance warranty to repair, replace, or refund software that does not perform in accordance with documentation. The standard software assurance warranty period is generally less than one year.  Assurance warranty claims were not material for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

 

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We do not adjust the transaction price for significant financing components where the time period between cash payment and performance is one year or less.  However, there are circumstances where the timing between cash payment and performance may exceed one year.  These circumstances generally involve prepaid multi-year product support and subscription services arrangements where the customer determines when the service is utilized (e.g., when to request on-call support services or when to use and access the software on the cloud).  In these circumstances, we have determined no significant financing component exists because the customer controls when to utilize the service and because there are significant business purposes behind the timing difference between payment and performance (e.g., maximizing profit in the case of product support services and ensuring collectability in the case of subscription services).

Allocating the Transaction Price Based on Standalone Selling Prices (SSP)

We allocate the transaction price to each performance obligation in a contract based on its relative SSP.  The SSP is the price at which we sell the product or service on a standalone basis at contract inception.  In circumstances where SSP is not directly observable, we estimate SSP using the following methodologies:

 

 

 

 

We often provide options to purchase future products or services at a discount. We analyze the option price against the previously established SSP of the goods or services to determine if the options represent material rights that should be accounted for as separate performance obligations.  In general, an option sold at or above SSP is not considered a material right because the customer could have received that right without entering into the contract.  If a material right exists, revenue associated with the option is recognized when the future goods or services are transferred, or when the option expires. During the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016, separate performance obligations arising from future purchase options have not been material.

 

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Incremental Costs to Obtain Customer Contracts

 

Incremental costs incurred to obtain contracts with customers include certain variable compensation (e.g., commissions and bonuses) paid to our sales team.  Although we may bundle our goods and services into one contract, commissions are individually determined on each distinct good or service in the contract.  We expense as incurred those amounts earned on consulting and education services, which are generally performed within a one-year period and primarily sold on a standalone basis. We also expense as incurred those amounts earned on product license sales, since the amount is earned when the license is delivered. We capitalize those amounts earned on product support and amortize the costs over a period of time that is consistent with the pattern of transfer of the product support to the customer, which we have determined to be a period of three years. Although we typically sell product support for a period of one year, a majority of customers renew their product support arrangements.  Three years is generally the period after which platforms are no longer supported by our support team and when customers generally choose to upgrade their software platform.  We do not pay variable compensation on product support renewals.  Variable compensation earned on subscription cloud services is expensed as incurred due to its immaterial nature.

Impact of Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Fluctuations on Results of Operations

We conduct a significant portion of our business in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the currency in which we report our consolidated financial statements.  As currency rates change from quarter over quarter and year over year, our results of operations may be impacted.  The table below summarizes the impact (in thousands) of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates on certain components of our Consolidated Statements of Operations by showing the increase (decrease) in international revenues or expenses, as applicable, from the prior year.  The term “international” refers to operations outside of the United States and Canada.

 

 

For example, if there had been no change to foreign currency exchange rates from 2017 to 2018, international product licenses revenues would have been $40.9 million rather than $39.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2018.  If there had been no change to foreign currency exchange rates from 2017 to 2018, international product support revenues would have been $120.5 million rather than $121.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2018.  If there had been no change to foreign currency exchange rates from 2017 to 2018, sales and marketing expenses would have been $206.1 million rather than $205.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2018.

 

Results of Operations

Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016

Revenues

Except as otherwise indicated herein, the term “domestic” refers to operations in the United States and Canada, and the term “international” refers to operations outside of the United States and Canada.

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Product licenses and subscription services revenues.  The following table sets forth product licenses and subscription services revenues (in thousands) and related percentage changes for the periods indicated: