Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Current and potential stockholders should consider carefully the risk factors described below. Any of these factors, many of which are beyond our control, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results, cash flow and stock price.

Failure to achieve success in our business strategy could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

As more fully described in Part I, Item 1 “Business,” our business strategy is designed to build on our portfolio of software and services to meet next-generation market opportunities. The success of this strategy could be affected by many of the risk factors discussed in this Form 10-K and also by our ability to:

Failure to achieve success with this strategy could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Given the global nature of our business, economic factors or political events beyond our control and other business risks associated with non-U.S. operations can affect our business in unpredictable ways.

International revenue has historically represented a significant percentage of our total worldwide revenue. Success in selling and developing our products outside the United States will depend on a variety of factors in various non-U.S. locations, including:

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Any of the foregoing factors could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

General economic conditions and credit constraints, or unfavorable economic conditions in a particular region, business or industry sector, may lead our customers to delay or forgo technology investments and could have other impacts, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Our products are designed to improve the productivity and efficiency of our customers’ information processing resources. However, a general slowdown in the global economy, or in a particular region (such as Europe), or disruption in a business or industry sector (such as the financial services sector), or tightening of credit markets, could cause customers to: have difficulty accessing credit sources; delay contractual payments; or delay or forgo decisions to (i) license new products (particularly with respect to discretionary spending for software), (ii) upgrade their existing environments or (iii) purchase services. Any such impacts could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Such a general slowdown in the global economy may also materially affect the global banking system, including individual institutions as well as a particular business or industry sector, which could cause further consolidations or failures in such a sector. Approximately one third of our revenue is derived from arrangements with financial institutions ( i.e ., banking, brokerage and insurance companies). The majority of these arrangements are for the renewal of mainframe capacity and maintenance associated with transactions processed by our financial institution customers. While we cannot predict what impact there may be on our business from further consolidation of the financial industry sector, or the impact from the economy in general on our business, to date the impact has not been material to our balance sheet, results of operations or cash flows. The vast majority of our subscription and maintenance revenue in any particular reporting period comes from contracts signed in prior periods, generally pursuant to contracts ranging in duration from three to five years.

Any of these events could affect the manner in which we are able to conduct business, including within a particular industry sector or market and could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Failure to adapt to technological changes and introduce new software products and services in a timely manner could materially adversely affect our business.

If we fail to keep pace with, or in certain cases lead, technological change in our industry, that failure could materially adversely affect our business. We operate in a highly competitive industry characterized by rapid technological change, evolving industry standards, and changes in customer requirements and delivery methods. During the past several years, many new technological advancements and competing products entered the marketplace. The distributed systems and application management markets in which we operate are far more crowded and competitive than our traditional mainframe systems management markets.

Our ability to compete effectively and our growth prospects for all of our products, including those associated with our business strategy, depend upon many factors, including the success of our existing distributed systems products, the timely introduction and success of future software products and related delivery methods, and the ability of our products to perform well with existing and future leading databases and other platforms supported by our products that address customer needs and are accepted by the market. We have experienced long development cycles and product delays in the past, particularly with some of our distributed systems products, and may experience delays in the future. In addition, we have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, significant research and development costs as we introduce new products and integrate products into solution sets. If there are delays in new product introduction or solution set integration, or if there is less-than-anticipated market acceptance of these new products or solution sets, we will have invested substantial resources without realizing adequate revenues in return, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

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We are subject to intense competition in product and service offerings and pricing, and we expect to face increased competition in the future, which could either diminish demand for or inhibit growth of our products and, therefore, reduce our sales, revenue and market presence.

The markets for our products are intensely competitive, and we expect product and service offerings and pricing competition to increase. Some of our competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, a larger installed base of customers in any particular market niche, larger technical staffs, established relationships with hardware vendors, or greater financial, technical and marketing resources. Furthermore, our business strategy is predicated upon our ability to develop and acquire products and services that address customer needs and are accepted by the market better than those of our competitors.

We also face competition from numerous smaller companies that specialize in specific aspects of the highly fragmented software industry, and from shareware authors that may develop competing products. In addition, new companies enter the market on a frequent and regular basis, offering products that compete with those offered by us. Moreover, certain customers historically have developed their own products that compete with those offered by us. The competition may affect our ability to attract and retain the technical skills needed to provide services to our customers, forcing us to become more reliant on delivery of services through third parties. This, in turn, could increase operating costs and decrease our revenue, profitability and cash flow. Additionally, competition from any of these sources could result in price reductions or displacement of our products, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Our competitors include large vendors of hardware and operating system software and service providers. The widespread inclusion of products that perform the same or similar functions as our products bundled within computer hardware or other companies’ software products, or services similar to those provided by us, could reduce the perceived need for our products and services, or render our products obsolete and unmarketable. Furthermore, even if these incorporated products are inferior or more limited than our products, customers may elect to accept the incorporated products rather than purchase our products. In addition, the software industry is currently undergoing consolidation as software companies seek to offer more extensive suites and broader arrays of software products and services, as well as integrated software and hardware solutions. This consolidation may adversely affect our competitive position, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow. Refer to Part I, Item 1, “Business — (c) Narrative Description of the Business — Competition,” for additional information.

Failure to expand our partner programs related to the sale of our solutions may result in lost sales opportunities, increases in expenses and a weakening in our competitive position.

We sell our solutions through global systems integrators, technology partners, managed service providers, solution providers, distributors of volume partners and exclusive representatives in partner programs that require training and expertise to sell these solutions, and global penetration to grow these aspects of our business. The failure to expand these partner programs and penetrate these markets could materially adversely affect our success with partners, resulting in lost sales opportunities and an increase in expenses, and could also weaken our competitive position.

Our business may suffer if we are not able to retain and attract adequate qualified personnel, including key managerial, technical, marketing and sales personnel.

We operate in a business where there is intense competition for experienced personnel in all of our global markets. We depend on our ability to identify, recruit, hire, train, develop and retain qualified and effective personnel and to attract and retain talent needed to execute our business strategy. Our ability to do so depends on numerous factors, including factors that we cannot control, such as competition and conditions in the local employment markets in which we operate. Our future success depends in a large part on the continued contribution of our senior management and other key employees. A loss of a significant number of skilled managerial, technical, marketing or other personnel could have a negative effect on the quality of our products. A loss of a significant number of experienced and effective sales personnel could result in fewer sales of our products. Our failure to retain qualified employees in these categories could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

We may encounter difficulties in successfully integrating companies and products that we have acquired or may acquire into our existing business, which could materially adversely affect our infrastructure, market presence, business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

In the past we have acquired, and in the future we expect to acquire, complementary companies, products, services and technologies (including through mergers, asset acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, strategic alliances and equity investments). Additionally, we expect to acquire technology and software that are consistent with our business strategy. The risks we may encounter include:

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These factors could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flow, particularly in the case of a large acquisition or number of acquisitions. To the extent we issue shares of stock or other rights to purchase stock, including options, to pay for acquisitions or to retain employees, existing stockholders’ interests may be diluted and income per share may decrease.

If we do not adequately manage and evolve our financial reporting and managerial systems and processes, including the successful implementation of our enterprise resource planning software, our ability to manage and grow our business may be harmed.

Our ability to successfully implement our business plan and comply with regulations requires effective planning and management systems and processes. We need to continue to improve and implement existing and new operational and financial systems, procedures and controls to manage our business effectively in the future. As a result, we have licensed enterprise resource planning software, consolidated certain finance functions into regional locations, and are in the process of expanding and upgrading our operational and financial systems. Any delay in the implementation of, or disruption in the transition to, our new or enhanced systems, procedures or internal controls, could adversely affect our ability to accurately forecast sales demand, manage our supply chain, achieve accuracy in the conversion of electronic data and records, and report financial and management information, including the filing of our quarterly or annual reports with the SEC, on a timely and accurate basis. Failure to properly or adequately address these issues could result in the diversion of management’s attention and resources, adversely affect our ability to manage our business and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flow. Refer to Item 9A, “Controls and Procedures,” for additional information.

If our products do not remain compatible with ever-changing operating environments we could lose customers and the demand for our products and services could decrease, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

The largest suppliers of systems and computing software are, in most cases, the manufacturers of the computer hardware systems used by most of our customers. Historically, these companies have from time to time modified or introduced new operating systems, systems software and computer hardware. In the future, new products from these companies could incorporate features that perform functions currently performed by our products, or could require substantial modification of our products to maintain compatibility with these companies’ hardware or software. Recently, many established enterprise hardware vendors have begun to bundle in basic management functionality software with their hardware offerings, putting additional competitive pressures on independent management software vendors like us. Although we have to date been able to adapt our products and our business to changes introduced by hardware manufacturers and system software developers, there can be no assurance that we will be able to do so in the future. Failure to deliver distinctive management functionality, beyond the basic functionality now being bundled by many hardware vendors, that delivers significant and differentiating value to customers could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

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In addition, the emergence of cloud computing means that many of our enterprise solutions customers are themselves undergoing a radical shift in the way they deliver IT services to their businesses. The shift towards delivering infrastructure and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) from the cloud may negatively affect our ability to sell IT management solutions to our traditional enterprise solutions customers. While we believe we adequately understand this risk and are taking steps in our product and business strategy to plan for it, failure to adapt our products, solutions, delivery models and sales approaches to effectively plan for cloud computing may adversely affect our business. If we are not successful in anticipating the rate of market change towards the cloud computing paradigm and evolving with it by delivering solutions for IT management in the cloud computing environment, customers may forgo the use of our products in favor of those with comparable functionality delivered via the cloud, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Our customers’ data centers and IT environments may be subject to hacking or other cybersecurity threats, harming customer relationships and the market perception of the effectiveness of our products.

An actual or perceived breach of our customers’ network security allowing access to our customers’ data centers or other parts of their IT environments, including access to confidential and personally identifiable information maintained by a customer, regardless of whether the breach is attributable to our products, may cause contractual disputes and may negatively affect the market perception of the effectiveness of our products and our reputation. Because the techniques used by computer hackers to access or sabotage networks change frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques. Alleviating any of these problems could require significant expenditures of our capital and diversion of our resources from development efforts. Additionally, these efforts could cause interruptions, delays or cessation of our product licensing, or modification of our software, which could cause us to lose existing or potential customers, and/or subject us to legal action by government authorities or private parties, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Our software products, data centers and IT environments may be subject to hacking or other cybersecurity threats, resulting in a loss or misuse of proprietary, personally identifiable and confidential information and harm to the market perception of the effectiveness of our products.

Given that our products are intended to manage and secure IT infrastructures and environments, we expect to be an ongoing target of attacks specifically designed to impede the performance of our products. Similarly, experienced computer programmers or hackers may attempt to penetrate our network security or the security of our data centers and IT environments. These hackers, or others, which may include our employees or vendors, may misappropriate proprietary, personally identifiable and confidential information of the Company, our customers, our employees or our business partners or other individuals or cause interruptions of our services. Although we continually seek to improve our countermeasures to prevent and detect such incidents, if these efforts are not successful, our business operations, and those of our customers, could be adversely affected, losses or theft of data could occur, our reputation and future sales could be harmed, governmental regulatory action or litigation could be commenced against us and our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow could be materially adversely affected.

Discovery of errors in our software could materially adversely affect our revenue and earnings and subject us to costly and time consuming product liability claims.

The software products we offer are inherently complex. Despite testing and quality control, we cannot be certain that errors will not be found in current versions, new versions or enhancements of our products after commencement of commercial shipments. If new or existing customers have difficulty deploying our products or require significant amounts of customer support, our operating margins could be adversely affected. We could also face possible claims and higher development costs if our software contains errors that we have not detected or if our software otherwise fails to meet our customers’ expectations. Significant technical challenges also arise with our products because our customers license and deploy our products across a variety of computer platforms and integrate them with a number of third-party software applications and databases. These combinations increase our risk further because, in the event of a system-wide failure, it may be difficult to determine which product is at fault. As a result, we may be harmed by the failure of another supplier’s products. As a result of the foregoing, we could experience:

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Consequently, the discovery of errors in our products after delivery could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Failure to protect our intellectual property rights and source code would weaken our competitive position.

Our future success is highly dependent upon our proprietary technology, including our software and our source code for that software. Failure to protect such technology could lead to the loss of valuable assets and our competitive advantage. We protect our proprietary information through the use of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions. Notwithstanding our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, policing unauthorized use or copying of our proprietary information is difficult. Unauthorized use or copying occurs from time to time and litigation to enforce intellectual property rights could result in significant costs and diversion of resources. Moreover, the laws of some foreign jurisdictions do not afford the same degree of protection to our proprietary rights as do the laws of the United States. For example, for some of our products, we rely on “shrink-wrap” or “click-on” licenses, which may be unenforceable in whole or in part in some jurisdictions in which we operate. In addition, patents we have obtained may be circumvented, challenged, invalidated or designed around by other companies. If we do not adequately protect our intellectual property for these or other reasons, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow could be materially adversely affected. Refer to Part I , Item 1, “Business — (c) Narrative Description of the Business — Intellectual Property,” for additional information.

Our sales to government clients subject us to risks, including early termination, renegotiation, audits, investigations, sanctions and penalties.

Approximately 9% of our total revenue backlog at March 31, 2012 is associated with multi-year contracts signed with the U.S. federal government and other U.S. state and local government agencies. These contracts are generally subject to annual fiscal funding approval, may be renegotiated or terminated at the discretion of the government, or all of these. Termination, renegotiation or funding approval for a contract could adversely affect our sales, revenue and reputation. Additionally, our government contracts are generally subject to audits and investigations, which could result in various civil and criminal penalties and administrative sanctions, including termination of contracts, refund of a portion of fees received, forfeiture of profits, suspension of payments, fines and suspensions or debarment from doing business with the government, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Certain software that we use in our products is licensed from third parties and, for that reason, may not be available to us in the future, which has the potential to delay product development and production or cause us to incur additional expense, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Some of our solutions contain software licensed from third parties. Some of these licenses may not be available to us in the future on terms that are acceptable to us or allow our products to remain competitive. The loss of these licenses or the inability to maintain any of them on commercially acceptable terms could delay development of future products or the enhancement of existing products. We may also choose to pay a premium price for such a license in certain circumstances where continuity of the licensed product would outweigh the premium cost of the license. The unavailability of these licenses or the necessity of agreeing to commercially unreasonable terms for such licenses could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Certain software we use is from open source code sources, which, under certain circumstances, may lead to unintended consequences and, therefore, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Some of our products contain software from open source code sources. The use of such open source code may subject us to certain conditions, including the obligation to offer our products that use open source code for no cost. We monitor our use of such open source code to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend. However, the use of such open source code may

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ultimately subject some of our products to unintended conditions, which could require us to take remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts and, therefore, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

We may lose access to third-party code and specifications for the development of code, which could materially adversely affect our ability to develop software compatible with third-party software products in the future.

Our solutions interact with a variety of software and hardware developed by third parties. Some software providers and hardware manufacturers, including some of the largest vendors, have a policy of restricting the use or availability of their code or technical documentation for some of their operating systems, applications, or hardware. To date, this policy has not had a material effect on us. Some companies, however, may adopt more restrictive policies in the future or impose unfavorable terms and conditions for such access. These restrictions may, in the future, result in higher research and development costs for us in connection with the enhancement and modification of our existing products and the development of new products. Any additional restrictions could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Third parties could claim that our products infringe or contribute to the infringement of their intellectual property rights or that we owe royalty payments to them, which could result in significant litigation expense or settlement with unfavorable terms, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

From time to time, third parties have claimed and may claim that our products infringe various forms of their intellectual property or that we owe royalty payments to them. Investigation of these claims can be expensive and could affect development, marketing or shipment of our products. As the number of software patents issued increases, it is likely that additional claims will be asserted. Defending against such claims is time consuming and could result in significant litigation expense or settlement on unfavorable terms, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

The number, terms and duration of our license agreements as well as the timing of orders from our customers and channel partners, may cause fluctuations in some of our key financial metrics, which may affect our quarterly financial results.

Historically, a substantial portion of our license agreements are executed in the last month of a quarter and the number of contracts executed during a given quarter can vary substantially. In addition, we experience a historically long sales cycle, which is driven in part by the varying terms and conditions of our software contracts. These factors can make it difficult for us to predict sales and cash flow on a quarterly basis. Any failure or delay in executing new or renewed license agreements in a given quarter could cause declines in some of our key financial metrics ( e.g. , revenue or cash flow), and, accordingly, increases the risk of unanticipated variations in our quarterly results and financial condition.

Failure to renew large license agreement transactions on a satisfactory basis could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Our core customers are large enterprises with multi-year enterprise license agreements each of which involves substantial aggregate fee amounts. The failure to renew those transactions in the future, or to replace those enterprise license agreements with new transactions of similar scope, on terms that are commercially attractive to us could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Changes in market conditions or our ratings could increase our interest costs and adversely affect the cost of refinancing our debt and our ability to refinance our debt, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

At March 31, 2012, we had $1,301 million of debt outstanding, consisting mostly of unsecured fixed-rate senior note obligations and credit facility borrowings. Refer to Note 9, “Debt,” in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements for the payment schedule of our long-term debt obligations. Our senior unsecured notes are rated by Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard and Poor’s. These agencies or any other credit rating agency could downgrade or take other negative action with respect to our credit ratings in the future. If our credit ratings were downgraded or other negative action is taken, we could be required to, among other things, pay additional interest on outstanding borrowings under our principal revolving credit agreement. Any downgrades could affect our ability to obtain additional financing in the future and may affect the terms of any such financing.

We expect that existing cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities, cash provided from operations and our bank credit facilities will be sufficient to meet ongoing cash requirements. However, our failure to generate sufficient cash as our debt becomes due or to renew credit lines prior to their expiration could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

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Fluctuations in foreign currencies could result in translation losses.

Our consolidated financial results are reported in U.S. dollars. Most of the revenue and expenses of our foreign subsidiaries are denominated in local currencies. Given that cash is typically received over an extended period of time for many of our license agreements and given that a substantial portion of our revenue is generated outside of the U.S., fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates (such as the euro) against the U.S. dollar could result in substantial changes in reported revenues and operating results due to the foreign currency impact upon translation of these transactions into U.S. dollars.

In the normal course of business, we employ various strategies to manage these risks, including the use of derivative instruments. These strategies may not be effective in protecting us against the effects of fluctuations from movements in foreign exchange rates. Fluctuations of the foreign currency exchange rates could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Failure by us to effectively execute on our announced workforce reductions could result in total costs that are greater than expected or revenues that are less than anticipated.

We have previously announced workforce reductions and other cost reduction initiatives to reallocate resources to growth areas of our business as part of our strategy. We may have further workforce reductions in the future. Risks associated with these actions and other workforce management issues include delays in implementation, changes in plans that increase or decrease the number of employees affected, adverse effects on employee morale and the failure to meet operational targets due to the loss of employees, any of which may impair our ability to achieve anticipated cost reductions or may otherwise harm our business, which could materially adversely affect our financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

We have outsourced various functions to third parties and use third parties as vendors pursuant to arrangements that may not be successful or fully secure, thereby resulting in increased costs or an increased chance of a cybersecurity threat, which may adversely affect service levels and our public reporting.

We have outsourced various functions to third parties, including certain development and administrative functions and hosting for our SaaS business, and may outsource additional functions to third-party providers in the future. We use third party vendors for a variety of functions including a number of which expressly involve confidential and/or personally identifiable information. We rely on all of these third parties to provide services on a timely and effective basis and to adequately address their own cybersecurity threats. Although we periodically monitor the performance of these third parties and maintain contingency plans in case the third parties are unable to perform as agreed, we do not ultimately control the performance of our outsourcing partners. The failure of third-party outsourcing partners or vendors to perform as expected or as contractually required could result in significant disruptions and costs to our operations or our customers’ operations, including the potential loss of personally identifiable data of our customers, employees and business partners and could subject us to legal action by government authorities or private parties, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow, and our ability to file our financial statements with the SEC timely or accurately.

We may encounter events or circumstances that would require us to record an impairment charge relating to our goodwill asset balance.

Under GAAP, we are required to evaluate goodwill for impairment at least annually, and more frequently if impairment indicators are present. Prior to fiscal 2012, we evaluated goodwill impairment based on a single operating segment. In the first quarter of fiscal 2012, we disaggregated our operations into three operating segments. This change required the allocation of our goodwill across these operating segments, as well as a change in our evaluation approach with respect to each of these operating segments. We completed our analysis for allocating goodwill by operating segment during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012. Going forward, absent any indicators of impairment, we expect to perform an annual impairment analysis during the fourth quarter of each fiscal year.

In future periods, we may be subject to factors that may constitute a change in circumstances, indicating that the full carrying value of our goodwill may not be recoverable. These changes may consist of, but are not limited to, declines in our stock price and market capitalization, reduced future cash flow estimates, and slower growth rates in our industry. Any of these factors, or others, could require us to record a significant non-cash impairment charge in our financial statements during a period. If we determine that a significant impairment of our goodwill has occurred in any of our operating segments, this could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Potential tax liabilities may materially adversely affect our results.

We are subject to income taxes in the United States and in numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes. In the ordinary course of our business, we engage in many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.

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We are regularly under audit by tax authorities. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits and any related litigation could be materially different from that which is reflected in our income tax provisions and accruals. Additional tax assessments resulting from audit, litigation or changes in tax laws may result in increased tax provisions or payments which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow in the period or periods in which that determination is made.