Item 1A. Risk Factors

The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones facing us. Other events that we do not currently anticipate or that we currently deem immaterial also may affect our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.

Our business is influenced by a range of factors that are beyond our control and that we have no comparative advantage in forecasting. These include:

The continued global economic crisis caused a general tightening in the credit markets, lower levels of liquidity, increases in the rates of default and bankruptcy, and extreme volatility in credit, equity and fixed income markets. These macroeconomic developments negatively affected, and could continue to negatively affect, our business, operating results or financial condition which, in turn, could adversely affect our stock price. A general weakening of, and related declining corporate confidence in, the global economy or the curtailment in government or corporate spending could cause current or potential customers to reduce their technology budgets or be unable to fund software or services purchases, which could cause customers to delay, decrease or cancel purchases of our products and services or cause customers not to pay us or to delay paying us for previously purchased products and services.

Because we recognize revenue from subscriptions for our service over the term of the subscription, downturns or upturns in new business may not be immediately reflected in our operating results.

We generally recognize revenue from customers ratably over the terms of their subscription agreements, which are typically 12 to 36 months. As a result, most of the revenue we report in each quarter is the result of subscription agreements entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any one quarter may not be reflected in our revenue results for that quarter. Any such decline, however, will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our service, and potential changes in our rate of renewals may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. Our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers must be recognized over the applicable subscription term.

We cannot accurately predict subscription renewal or upgrade rates and the impact these rates may have on our future revenue and operating results.

Our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our service after the expiration of their initial subscription period, which is typically 12 to 36 months, and in fact, some customers have elected not to renew. In addition, our customers may

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renew for fewer subscriptions, renew for shorter contract lengths, or renew for lower cost editions of our service. We cannot accurately predict renewal rates given our varied customer base of enterprise and small and medium size business customers and the number of multiyear subscription contracts. Our renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including customer dissatisfaction with our service, customers’ spending levels, decreases in the number of users at our customers, pricing changes and deteriorating general economic conditions. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions for our service or reduce the number of paying subscriptions at the time of renewal, our revenue will decline and our business will suffer.

Our future success also depends in part on our ability to sell additional features and services, more subscriptions or enhanced editions of our service to our current customers. This may also require increasingly sophisticated and costly sales efforts that are targeted at senior management. Similarly, the rate at which our customers purchase new or enhanced services depends on a number of factors, including general economic conditions and that our customers do not react negatively to any price changes related to these additional features and services. If our efforts to upsell to our customers are not successful and negative reaction occurs, our business may suffer.

Our hybrid revenue model may affect our operating results.

We have a hybrid delivery model meaning that we offer our solutions on a cloud or license basis to our customers. For license transactions, the license revenue amount is generally recognized in the quarter delivery and acceptance of our software takes place. Whereas, for cloud transactions, cloud revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the cloud contract, which is typically one to two years. As a result, our total revenue may increase or decrease in future quarters as a result of the timing and mix of license and cloud transactions. This could be exacerbated as more customers employ our cloud solution over our licensed solution; causing us to increase the amount of revenue recognized ratably over the life of the contract therefore resulting in a decrease in our total revenue in the short-term.

Failure to comply with covenants in our loan facility may restrict our access to credit which could negatively impact our operations.

If we fail to comply with our covenants, Comerica can declare any outstanding amounts immediately due and payable and stop extending credit to us. If our access to credit were restricted in this way, our operations would suffer and negatively impact our business.

Our lengthy sales cycles and the difficulty in predicting timing of sales or delays may impair our operating results.

The long sales cycle for our products may cause license revenue and operating results to vary significantly from period to period. The sales cycle for our products can be six months or more and varies substantially from customer to customer. Because we sell complex and deeply integrated solutions, it can take many months of customer education to secure sales. Because our potential customers may evaluate our products before, if ever, executing definitive agreements, we may incur substantial expenses and spend significant management effort in connection with the potential customer. Our multi-product offering and the increasingly complex needs of our customers contribute to a longer and unpredictable sales cycle. Consequently, we often face difficulty predicting the quarter in which expected sales will actually occur. This contributes to the uncertainty and fluctuations in our future operating results. In particular, the corporate decision-making and approval process of our customers and potential customers has become more complicated. This has caused our average sales cycle to further increase and, in some cases, has prevented the closure of sales that we believed were likely to close. In addition, historically our license sales have comprised a relatively small number of high value transactions; consequently, we may miss our revenue forecasts and may incur expenses that are not offset by corresponding revenue from the delay in even one transaction.

Because we depend on a relatively small number of customers for a substantial portion of our revenue, the loss of any of these customers or our failure to attract new significant customers could adversely impact our revenue and harm our business.

We have in the past and expect in the future to derive a substantial portion of our revenue from sales to a relatively small number of customers. The composition of these customers has varied in the past, and we expect that it will continue to vary over time. As a result, the loss of any significant customer or a decline in business with any significant customer would materially and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our revenue and operating expenses are unpredictable and may fluctuate, which may harm our operating results and financial condition.

Due to the emerging nature of the multichannel contact center market and other similar factors, our revenue and operating results may fluctuate from quarter to quarter. Our revenue could fall short of expectations if we experience delays or cancellations of even a small number of orders. It is possible that our operating results in some quarters will be below the expectations of financial analysts or investors. In this event, the market price of our common stock is also likely to decline.

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A number of factors are likely to cause fluctuations in our operating results, including, but not limited to, the following:

In addition, we base our expense levels in part on expectations regarding future revenue levels. In the short term, expenses, such as employee compensation and rent, are relatively fixed. If revenue for a particular quarter is below expectations, we may be unable to reduce our operating expenses proportionately for that quarter. Accordingly, such a revenue shortfall would have a disproportionate effect on expected operating results for that quarter. For this reason, period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may also not be a good indication of our future performance.

As we acquire companies or technologies, we may not realize the expected business benefits, the acquisitions could prove difficult to integrate, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our operations.

As part of our business strategy, we periodically make investments in, or acquisitions of, complementary businesses, joint ventures, services and technologies and intellectual property rights, and we expect that we will continue to make such investments and acquisitions in the future. In August 2014, we acquired Exony  Acquisitions and investments involve numerous risks, including:

In addition, if we finance acquisitions by issuing equity or convertible or other debt securities or loans, our existing stockholders may be diluted, or we could face constraints related to the terms of repayment obligations related to the incurrence of indebtedness which could affect the market price of our common stock. Further, if we fail to properly evaluate and execute acquisitions or investments, our business operations and prospects may be seriously harmed.

We must compete successfully in our market segment.

The market for customer engagement software is intensely competitive. Other than product innovation and existing customer relationships, there are no substantial barriers to entry in this market, and established or new entities may enter this market in the future. While software internally developed by enterprises represents indirect competition, we also compete directly with packaged application software vendors, including Avaya, Inc., Genesys Telecommunications, LivePerson, Inc., and Moxie Software, Inc. In

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addition, we face actual or potential competition from larger software companies such as Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Salesforce.com, Inc. and similar companies that may attempt to sell customer engagement software to their installed base.

We believe competition will continue to be fierce as current competitors increase the sophistication of their offerings and as new participants enter the market. Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, broader brand recognition, and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources. With more established and better-financed competitors, these companies may be able to undertake more extensive marketing campaigns, adopt more aggressive pricing policies, and make more attractive offers to businesses to induce them to use their products or services.

We have experienced growth in recent periods and expect to continue to grow. If we fail to manage our growth effectively, we may be unable to execute our business plan, maintain high levels of service or adequately address competitive challenges.

To achieve our business objectives, we will need to continue to expand our business. This expansion has placed, and is expected to continue to place, a significant strain on our managerial, administrative, operational, financial and other resources. We anticipate that expansion will require substantial management effort and additional investment in our infrastructure and headcount. If we are unable to successfully manage our growth, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected.

Part of the challenge that we expect to face in the course of our expansion is the need to increase staffing, primarily to develop new sales strategies and to expand into different markets. We have considerable need to recruit, train, and retain qualified staff and any delays or difficulties we encounter in these staffing efforts could impair our ability to execute our business plan.

We intend to continue to expand our distribution channels into international markets and to spend significant financial and managerial resources to do so. If we are successful in our expansion or are unable to provide adequate service to this expansion, our business and operating results will suffer.

If we fail to expand and improve our sales performance and marketing activities, we may be unable to grow our business, negatively impacting our operating results and financial condition.

Expansion and growth of our business is dependent on our ability to expand our sales force and on the ability of our sales force to increase sales. If we are not able to effectively develop and maintain awareness of our products in a cost-effective manner, we may not achieve widespread acceptance of our existing and future products. This may result in a failure to expand and attract new customers and enhance relationships with existing customers. This may impede our efforts to improve operations in other areas of the Company and may result in declines in the market price of our common stock.

Due to the complexity of our customer engagement hub platform and related products and services, we must utilize highly trained sales personnel to educate prospective customers regarding the use and benefits of our products and services as well as provide effective customer support. If we have turnover in our sales and marketing teams, we may not be able to successfully compete with those of our competitors.

Our failure to develop and expand strategic and third party distribution channels would impede our revenue growth.

Our success and future growth depends in part upon the skills, experience, performance and continued service of our distribution partners, including software and hardware vendors and resellers. We engage with distribution partners in a number of ways, including assisting us to identify prospective customers, to distribute our products in geographies where we do not have a physical presence and to distribute our products where they are considered complementary to other third party products distributed by the partner. We believe that our future success depends in part upon our ability to develop and expand strategic, long term and profitable partnerships and reseller relationships. If we are unable to do so, or if any existing or future distribution partners fail to successfully market, resell, implement or support our products for their customers, or if distribution partners represent multiple providers and devote greater resources to market, resell, implement and support competing products and services, our future revenue growth could be impeded. Our failure to develop and expand relationships with systems integrators could harm our business.

We sometimes rely on system integrators to recommend our products to their customers and to install and support our products for their customers. We likewise depend on broad market acceptance by these system integrators of our product and service offerings. Our agreements generally do not prohibit competitive offerings and system integrators may develop market or recommend software applications that compete with our products. Moreover, if these firms fail to implement our products successfully for their customers, we may not have the resources to implement our products on the schedule required by their customers. To the extent we devote resources to these relationships and the partnerships do not proceed as anticipated or provide revenue or other results as anticipated, our business may be harmed. Once partnerships are forged, there can be no guarantee that such relationships will be renewed in the

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future or available on acceptable terms. If we lose strategic third party relationships, fail to renew or develop new relationships, or fail to fully exploit revenue opportunities within such relationships, our results of operations and future growth may suffer.

Our international operations involve various risks.

We derived 41% and 44% of our revenue from international sales for the quarters ended September 30, 2014 and 2013, respectively. Including those discussed above, our international sales operations are subject to a number of specific risks, such as:

As of September 30, 2014, approximately 51% of our workforce was employed in India. Of these employees, 34% are allocated to research and development. Although the movement of certain operations internationally was principally motivated by cost cutting, the continued management of these remote operations requires significant management attention and financial resources that could adversely affect our operating performance. In addition, with the significant increase in the numbers of foreign businesses that have established operations in India, the competition to attract and retain employees there has increased significantly. As a result of the increased competition for skilled workers, we experienced increased compensation costs and expect these costs to increase in the future. Our reliance on our workforce in India makes us particularly susceptible to disruptions in the business environment in that region. In particular, sophisticated telecommunications links, high-speed data communications with other eGain offices and customers, and overall consistency and stability of our business infrastructure are vital to our day-to-day operations, and any impairment of such infrastructure will cause our financial condition and results to suffer. The maintenance of stable political relations between the United States, European Union and India are also of great importance to our operations.

Any of these risks could have a significant impact on our product development, customer support, or professional services. To the extent the benefit of maintaining these operations abroad does not exceed the expense of establishing and maintaining such activities, our operating results and financial condition will suffer.

We may need additional capital, and raising such additional capital may be difficult or impossible and will likely significantly dilute existing stockholders.

We believe that existing capital resources will enable us to maintain current and planned operations for the next 12 months. However, our working capital requirements in the foreseeable future are subject to numerous risks and will depend on a variety of factors, in particular, whether we maintain or exceed the level of revenue achieved as of September 30, 2014 and that customers continue to pay on a timely basis. We may need to secure additional financing due to unforeseen or unanticipated market conditions. We may try to raise additional funds through public or private financings, strategic relationships, or other arrangements. Such financing may be difficult to obtain on terms acceptable to us, if at all. If we succeed in raising additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible securities, then the issuance could result in substantial dilution to existing stockholders. If we raise additional funds through the issuance of debt securities or preferred stock, these new securities would have rights, preferences, and privileges senior to those of the holders of our common stock. The terms of these securities could impose restrictions on our operations.

Difficulties in implementing our products could harm our revenue and margins.

We generally recognize license revenue from a customer sale when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, the product has been delivered, the arrangement does not involve significant customization of the software, the license fee is fixed or determinable and collection of the fee is probable. If an arrangement requires significant customization or implementation services from us, recognition of the associated license and service revenue could be delayed. The timing of the commencement and completion of these services is subject to factors that may be beyond our control, as this process requires access to the customer’s facilities and coordination with the customer’s personnel after delivery of the software. In addition, customers could cancel or delay product implementations. Implementation typically involves working with sophisticated software, computing and communications systems. If

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we experience difficulties with implementation or do not meet project milestones in a timely manner, we could be obligated to devote more customer support, engineering and other resources to a particular project. Some customers may also require us to develop customized features or capabilities. If new or existing customers cancel or have difficulty deploying our products or require significant amounts of our professional services, support, or customized features, revenue recognition could be cancelled or further delayed and our costs could increase, causing increased variability in our operating results.

Our reserves may be insufficient to cover receivables we are unable to collect.

We assume a certain level of credit risk with our customers in order to do business. Conditions affecting any of our customers could cause them to become unable or unwilling to pay us in a timely manner, or at all, for products or services we have already provided them. In the past, we have experienced collection delays from certain customers, and we cannot predict whether we will continue to experience similar or more severe delays in the future. Although we have established reserves to cover losses due to delays or inability to pay, there can be no assurance that such reserves will be sufficient to cover our losses. If losses due to delays or inability to pay are greater than our reserves, it could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

We may be subject to legal liability and/or negative publicity for the services provided to consumers via our technology platforms.

Our technology platforms enable representatives of our customers as well as individual service providers to communicate with consumers and other persons seeking information or advice on the Internet. The law relating to the liability of online platform providers such as us for the activities of users of their online platforms is often challenged in the U.S. and internationally. We may be unable to prevent users of our technology platforms from providing negligent, unlawful or inappropriate advice, information or content via our technology platforms, or from behaving in an unlawful manner, and we may be subject to allegations of civil or criminal liability for negligent, fraudulent, unlawful or inappropriate activities carried out by users of our technology platforms.

Claims could be made against online services companies under both U.S. and foreign law such as fraud, defamation, libel, invasion of privacy, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement, or other theories based on the nature and content of the materials disseminated by users of our technology platforms. In addition, domestic and foreign legislation has been proposed that could prohibit or impose liability for the transmission over the Internet of certain types of information. Our defense of any of these actions could be costly and involve significant time and attention of our management and other resources.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, is intended, among other things, to reduce the liability of online service providers for listing or linking to third party web properties that include materials that infringe copyrights or rights of others. Additionally, portions of The Communications Decency Act, or CDA, are intended to provide statutory protections to online service providers who distribute third party content. A safe harbor for copyright infringement is also available under the DMCA to certain online service providers that provide specific services, if the providers take certain affirmative steps as set forth in the DMCA. Important questions regarding the safe harbor under the DMCA and the CDA have yet to be litigated, and we cannot guarantee that we will meet the safe harbor requirements of the DMCA or of the CDA. If we are not covered by a safe harbor, for any reason, we could be exposed to claims, which could be costly and time-consuming to defend.

Unplanned system interruptions and capacity constraints and failure to effect efficient transmission of customer communications and data over the Internet could harm our business and reputation.

Our customers have in the past experienced some interruptions with eGain-hosted operations. We believe that these interruptions will continue to occur from time to time. These interruptions could be due to hardware and operating system failures. As a result, our business will suffer if we experience frequent or long system interruptions that result in the unavailability or reduced performance of our cloud operations or reduce our ability to provide remote management services. We expect to experience occasional temporary capacity constraints due to sharply increased traffic or other Internet-wide disruptions, which may cause unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, impaired quality, and degradation in levels of customer service. If this were to continue to happen, our business and reputation could be seriously harmed.

The growth in the use of the Internet has caused interruptions and delays in accessing the Internet and transmitting data over the Internet. Interruptions also occur due to systems burdens brought on by unsolicited bulk email or “Spam,” malicious service attacks and hacking into operating systems, viruses, worms and a “Trojan” horse, the proliferation of which is beyond our control and may seriously impact our and our customers’ businesses.

Because we provide Cloud-based software, interruptions or delays in Internet transmissions will harm our customers’ ability to receive and respond to online interactions. Therefore, our market depends on ongoing improvements being made to the entire Internet infrastructure to alleviate overloading and congestion.

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Our success largely depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of our computer and communications hardware and network systems. A significant amount of our computer and communications systems are located in Sunnyvale, California. Due to our location, our systems and operations are vulnerable to damage or interruption from fire, earthquake, power loss, telecommunications failure and similar events.

We do maintain a business continuity plan for our customers in the event of an outage. We maintain other co-locations for the purposes of disaster recovery as well as maintaining back up’s of our customer’s information.

We have entered into service agreements with some of our customers that require minimum performance standards, including standards regarding the availability and response time of our remote management services. If we fail to meet these standards, our customers could terminate their relationships with us, and we could be subject to contractual refunds and service credits to customers. Any unplanned interruption of services may harm our ability to attract and retain customers.

The terms we agree to in our Service Level Agreements or other contracts may result in increased costs or liabilities, which would in turn affect our results of operations.

Our Service Level Agreement (SLA) includes indemnification provisions and provides for service credits for system unavailability, and loss, damage or costs resulting from use of our system. If we were required to provide any of these in a material way, our results of operations would suffer.

We have been and may in the future be sued by third parties for various claims including alleged infringement of proprietary rights.

We are involved in various legal matters arising from the normal course of business activities. These may include claims, suits, and other proceedings involving alleged infringement of third-party patents and other intellectual property rights, and commercial, labor and employment, and other matters.

The software and Internet industries are characterized by the existence of a large number of patents, trademarks and copyrights and by frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. We have received in the past and may receive in the future communications from third parties claiming that we or our customers have infringed the intellectual property rights of others. In addition we have been, and may in the future be, sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their claimed proprietary rights. Our technologies and those of our customers may be subject to injunction if they are found to infringe the rights of a third party or we may be required to pay damages, or both. Many of our agreements require us to indemnify our customers for third-party intellectual property infringement claims, which would increase the cost to us of an adverse ruling on such a claim.

The outcome of any litigation, regardless of its merits, is inherently uncertain. Any claims and lawsuits, and the disposition of such claims and lawsuits, could be time-consuming and expensive to resolve, divert management attention from executing our business plan, lead to attempts on the part of other parties to pursue similar claims and, in the case of intellectual property claims, require us to change our technology, change our business practices or pay monetary damages, or enter into short- or long-term royalty or licensing agreements.

Any adverse determination related to intellectual property claims or other litigation could prevent us from offering our service to others, could be material to our financial condition or cash flows, or both, or could otherwise adversely affect our operating results. In addition, depending on the nature and timing of any such dispute, a resolution of a legal matter could materially affect our future results of operation or cash flows or both.

We rely on trademark, copyright, trade secret laws, contractual restrictions and patent rights to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights and if these rights are impaired, then our ability to generate revenue will be harmed.

If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors might gain access to our technology, and our business might be harmed. In addition, defending our intellectual property rights might entail significant expense. Any of our trademarks or other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. While we have some U.S. patents and pending U.S. patent applications, we may be unable to obtain patent protection for the technology covered in our patent applications. In addition, our existing patents and any patents issued in the future may not provide us with competitive advantages, or may be successfully challenged by third parties. Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our service is available. The laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the U.S., and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights

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may be inadequate. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property.

We might be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights. We may initiate claims or litigation against third parties for infringement of our proprietary rights or to establish the validity of our proprietary rights. Any litigation, whether or not it is resolved in our favor, could result in significant expense to us and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel.

Our failure or inability to develop non-infringing technology or license the proprietary rights on a timely basis would harm our business.

Third parties may infringe or misappropriate our intellectual property and similar proprietary rights. In addition, other parties may assert infringement claims against us. Our products may infringe issued patents that may relate to our products. In addition, because patent applications in the United States are not publicly disclosed until the patent is issued, applications may have been filed which relate to our software products. We may be subject to legal proceedings and claims from time to time in the ordinary course of our business, including claims of alleged infringement of the patents and other intellectual property rights of third parties. Intellectual property litigation is expensive, time consuming, and could divert management’s attention away from running our business. This litigation could also require us to develop non-infringing technology or enter into royalty or license agreements. These royalty or license agreements, if required, may not be available on acceptable terms, if at all, in the event of a successful claim of infringement.

Our stock price has demonstrated volatility and continued market conditions may cause declines or fluctuations.

The price at which our common stock trades has been and will likely continue to be highly volatile and show wide fluctuations due to factors such as the following:

Furthermore, the stock market has recently and in the past experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that have affected the market prices for the common stock of technology companies, regardless of the specific operating performance of the affected company. These broad market fluctuations may cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

Our insiders who are significant stockholders may control the election of our board and may have interests that conflict with those of other stockholders.

Our directors and executive officers, together with their affiliates and members of their immediate families, beneficially owned, in the aggregate, approximately 38.6% of our outstanding capital stock as of September 30, 2014. As a result, acting together, this group has the ability to exercise significant control over most matters requiring our stockholders’ approval, including the election and removal of directors and significant corporate transactions.

If we are unable to hire and retain key personnel, our business and results of operations would be negatively affected.

Our success will also depend in large part on the skills, experience and performance of our senior management, engineering, sales, marketing and other key personnel. The loss of the services of any of our senior management or other key personnel, including our Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Ashutosh Roy, could harm our business. Additionally, an increase in attrition in the Indian workforce on which we rely for research and development would have significant negative effects on us and our results of operations. If we cannot hire and retain qualified personnel, our ability to expand our business would be impaired and our results of operations would suffer.

Privacy concerns and laws, evolving regulation of cloud computing, cross-border data transfer restrictions and other domestic or foreign regulations may limit the use and adoption of our solutions and adversely affect our business.

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Regulation related to the provision of services on the Internet is increasing, as federal, state and foreign governments continue to adopt new laws and regulations addressing data privacy and the collection, processing, storage and use of personal information. In some cases foreign data privacy laws and regulations, such as the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, and the country-specific regulations that implement that directive, also govern the processing of personal information. Further, laws are increasingly aimed at the use of personal information for marketing purposes, such as the European Union’s e-Privacy Directive, and the country-specific regulations that implement that directive. Such laws and regulations are subject to differing interpretations and may be inconsistent among jurisdictions. These and other requirements could reduce demand for our solutions or restrict our ability to store and process data or, in some cases, impact our ability to offer our services and solutions in certain locations.

In addition to government activity, privacy advocacy and other industry groups have established or may establish new self-regulatory standards that may place additional burdens on us. Our customers expect us to meet voluntary certification or other standards established by third parties, such as TRUSTe. If we are unable to maintain these certifications or meet these standards, it could adversely affect our ability to provide our solutions to certain customers and could harm our business.

The costs of compliance with and other burdens imposed by laws, regulations and standards may limit the use and adoption of our service and reduce overall demand for it, or lead to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for any noncompliance.

Furthermore, concerns regarding data privacy may cause our customers’ customers to resist providing the data necessary to allow our customers to use our service effectively. Even the perception that the privacy of personal information is not satisfactorily protected or does not meet regulatory requirements could inhibit sales of our products or services, and could limit adoption of our subscription solution.

Industry-specific regulation is evolving and unfavorable industry-specific laws, regulations or interpretive positions could harm our business .

Our customers and potential customers do business in a variety of industries, including financial services, the public sector, healthcare and telecommunications. Regulators in certain industries have adopted and may in the future adopt regulations or interpretive positions regarding the use of cloud computing and other outsourced services. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, industry-specific laws, regulations and interpretive positions may limit customers’ use and adoption of our services and reduce overall demand for our services. For example, some financial services regulators have imposed guidelines for use of cloud computing services that mandate specific controls or require financial services enterprises to obtain regulatory approval prior to outsourcing certain functions. If we are unable to comply with these guidelines or controls, or if our customers are unable to obtain regulatory approval to use our service where required, our business may be harmed. In addition, an inability to satisfy the standards of certain voluntary third-party certification bodies that our customers may expect, such as an attestation of compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards, may have an adverse impact on our business. If in the future we are unable to achieve or maintain these industry-specific certifications or other requirements or standards relevant to our customers, it may harm our business.

In some cases, industry-specific laws, regulations or interpretive positions may also apply directly to us as a service provider. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with such requirements could have an adverse impact on our business.

If our security measures are breached and unauthorized access is obtained to a customer’s data or our data or our IT systems, our service may be perceived as not being secure, customers may curtail or stop using our service and we may incur significant legal and financial exposure and liabilities.

Our service involves the storage and transmission of customers’ proprietary information, and security breaches could expose us to a risk of loss of this information, litigation and possible liability. These security measures may be breached as a result of third-party action, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise and result in someone obtaining unauthorized access to our customers’ data or our data, including our intellectual property and other confidential business information, or our IT systems. Additionally, third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees or customers into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information in order to gain access to our customers’ data or our data or IT systems. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, or to sabotage systems, change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. In addition, our customers may authorize third party access to their customer data located in our cloud environment. Because we do not control the transmissions between customer authorized third parties, or the processing of such data by customer authorized third parties, we cannot ensure the integrity or security of such transmissions or processing. Any security breach could result in a loss of confidence in the security of our service, damage our reputation, negatively impact our future sales, disrupt our business and lead to legal liability.

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We may need to license third-party technologies and may be unable to do so on commercially reasonable terms.

To the extent we need to license third-party technologies, we may be unable to do so on commercially reasonable terms or at all. In addition, we may fail to successfully integrate any licensed technology into our products or services. Third-party licenses may expose us to increased risks, including risks associated with the integration of new technology, the diversion of resources from the development of our own proprietary technology, and our inability to generate revenue from new technology sufficient to offset associated acquisition and maintenance costs. Our inability to obtain and successfully integrate any of these licenses could delay product and service development until equivalent technology can be identified, licensed and integrated. This in turn would harm our business and operating results.

Changes to current accounting policies could have a significant effect on our reported financial results or the way in which we conduct our business.

Generally accepted accounting principles and the related accounting pronouncements, implementation guidelines and interpretations for some of our significant accounting policies are highly complex and require subjective judgments and assumptions. Some of our more significant accounting policies that could be affected by changes in the accounting rules and the related implementation guidelines and interpretations include:

Changes in these or other rules, or scrutiny of our current accounting practices, or a determination that our judgments or assumptions in the application of these accounting principles were incorrect, could have a significant adverse effect on our reported operating results or the way in which we conduct our business.

We depend on broad market acceptance of our applications and of our business model.

We depend on the widespread acceptance and use of our applications as an effective solution for businesses seeking to manage high volumes of customer interactions across multiple channels, including Web, phone, email, print and in-person. While we believe the potential to be very large, we cannot accurately estimate the size or growth rate of the potential market for such product and service offerings generally, and we do not know whether our products and services in particular will achieve broad market acceptance. The market for customer engagement software is relatively new and rapidly evolving, and concerns over the security and reliability of online transactions, the privacy of users and quality of service or other issues may inhibit the growth of the Internet and commercial online services. If the market for our applications fails to grow or grows more slowly than we currently anticipate, our business will be seriously harmed.

Furthermore, our business model is premised on business assumptions that are still evolving. Our business model assumes that both customers and companies will increasingly elect to communicate via multiple channels, as well as demand integration of the online channels into the traditional telephone-based call center. Our business model also assumes that many companies recognize the benefits of a cloud delivery model and will seek to have their customer engagement software applications hosted by us. If any of these assumptions is incorrect or if customers and companies do not adopt digital technology in a timely manner, our business will be seriously harmed and our stock price will decline.

We may not be able to respond to the rapid technological change of the customer engagement software industry.

The customer engagement software industry is characterized by rapid technological change, changes in customer requirements and preferences, and the emergence of new industry standards and practices that could render our existing services, proprietary technology and systems obsolete. We must continually develop or introduce and improve the performance, features and reliability of our products and services, particularly in response to competitive offerings. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to enhance our existing services and to develop new services, functionality and technology that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of prospective customers. If we do not properly identify the feature preferences of prospective customers, or if we fail to deliver product features that meet the standards of these customers, our ability to market our service and compete successfully and to increase revenue could be impaired. The development of proprietary technology and necessary service enhancements entails significant technical and business risks and requires substantial expenditures and lead-time. We may not be able to keep pace with the latest technological developments. We may also be unable to use new technologies effectively or adapt services to customer requirements or emerging industry standards or regulatory or legal requirements. More generally, if we cannot adapt or respond in a cost-effective and timely manner to changing industry standards, market conditions or customer requirements, our business and operating results will suffer.

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