TYL, §1A diff (2017 → 2018)

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS. An investment in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. Investors evaluating our company should carefully consider the factors described below and all other information contained in this Annual Report. Any of the following factors could materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. Additional factors and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently consider immaterial could also harm our business, operating results, and financial condition. This section should be read in conjunction with the Financial Statements and related Notes and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations included in this Annual Report. We may make forward-looking statements from time to time, both written and oral. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from those projected in any such forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including those set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report. Risks Associated with Our Software Products Cyber-attacks and security vulnerabilities can disrupt our business and harm our competitive position. Threats to IT security can take a variety of forms. Individuals and groups of hackers, and sophisticated organizations including state-sponsored organizations, may take steps that pose threats to our clients and our IT. They may develop and deploy malicious software to attack our products and services and gain access to our networks and data centers, or act in a coordinated manner to launch distributed denial of service or other coordinated attacks. Cyber threats are constantly evolving, thereby increasing the difficulty of detecting and successfully defending against them. Cyber threats can have cascading impacts that unfold with increasing speed across our internal networks and systems and those of our partners and clients. Breaches of our network or data security could disrupt the security of our internal systems and business applications, impair our ability to provide services to our clients and protect the privacy of their data, result in product development delays, compromise confidential or technical business information harming our competitive position, result in theft or misuse of our intellectual property or other assets, require us to allocate more resources to improve technologies, or otherwise adversely affect our business. Our business policies and internal security controls may not keep pace with these evolving threats. Disclosure of personally identifiable information and/or other sensitive client data could result in liability and harm our reputation. We store and process increasingly large amounts of personally identifiable and other confidential information of our clients. The continued occurrence of high-profile data breaches provides evidence of an external environment increasingly hostile to information security. Despite our efforts to improve security controls, it is possible our security controls over personal data, our training of employees on data security, and other practices we follow may not prevent the improper disclosure of client data that we store and manage. Disclosure of personally identifiable information and/or other sensitive client data could result in liability and harm our reputation. Hosting services for some of our products are dependent upon the uninterrupted operation of data centers. A material portion of our business is provided through software hosting services. These hosting services depend on the uninterrupted operation of data centers and the ability to protect computer equipment and information stored in these data centers against damage that may be caused by natural disaster, fire, power loss, telecommunications or Internet failure, acts of terrorism, unauthorized intrusion, computer viruses, and other similar damaging events. If any of our data centers were to become inoperable for an extended period, we might be unable to fulfill our contractual commitments. Although we take what we believe to be reasonable precautions against such occurrences, we can give no assurance that damaging events such as these will not result in a prolonged interruption of our services, which could result in client dissatisfaction, loss of revenue, and damage to our business. We run the risk of errors or defects with new products or enhancements to existing products. Our software products are complex and may contain errors or defects, especially when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. Although we have not experienced material adverse effects from any such defects or errors to date, we cannot assure you that material defects and errors will not be found in the future. Any such defects could result in a loss of revenues or delay market acceptance. Our license agreements typically contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to potential liability. However, it is possible we may not always successfully negotiate such provisions in our client contracts or the limitation of liability provisions may not be effective due to existing or future federal, state, or local laws, ordinances, or judicial decisions. Although we maintain errors and omissions and general liability insurance, and we try to structure contracts to limit liability, we cannot assure you that a successful claim could not be made or would not have a material adverse effect on our future operating results. We must timely respond to technological changes to be competitive. The market for our products is characterized by technological change, evolving industry standards in software technology, changes in client requirements, and frequent new product introductions and enhancements. The introduction of products embodying new technologies and the emergence of new industry standards can render existing products obsolete and unmarketable. As a result, our future success will depend, in part, upon our ability to enhance existing products and develop and introduce new products that keep pace with technological developments, satisfy increasingly sophisticated client requirements, and achieve market acceptance. We cannot assure you that we will successfully identify new product opportunities and develop and bring new products to market in a timely and cost-effective manner. The products, capabilities, or technologies developed by others could also render our products or technologies obsolete or noncompetitive. Our business may be adversely affected if we are unable to develop or acquire new software products or develop enhancements to existing products on a timely and cost-effective basis, or if such new products or enhancements do not achieve market acceptance. We may be unable to protect our proprietary rights. Many of our product and service offerings incorporate proprietary information, trade secrets, know-how, and other intellectual property rights. We rely on a combination of contracts, copyrights, and trade secret laws to establish and protect our proprietary rights in our technology. We cannot be certain that we have taken all appropriate steps to deter misappropriation of our intellectual property. There has also been significant litigation recently involving intellectual property rights. We are not currently involved in any material intellectual property litigation; however, we may be a party to such litigation in the future to protect our proprietary information, trade secrets, know-how, and other intellectual property rights. We cannot assure you that third-parties will not assert infringement or misappropriation claims against us with respect to current or future products. Any claims or litigation, with or without merit, could be time-consuming, costly, and a diversion to management. Any such claims and litigation could also cause product shipment delays or require us to enter into royalty or licensing arrangements. Such royalty or licensing arrangements, if required, may not be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all. Therefore, litigation to defend and enforce our intellectual property rights could have a material adverse effect on our business, regardless of the final outcome of such litigation. Clients may elect to terminate our maintenance contracts and manage operations internally. It is possible that our clients may elect to not renew maintenance contracts for our software, trying instead to maintain and operate the software themselves using their perpetual license rights (excluding software applications that we provide on a hosted or cloud basis). This could adversely affect our revenues and profits. Additionally, they may inadvertently allow our intellectual property or other information to fall into the hands of third-parties, including our competitors, which could adversely affect our business. Material portions of our business require the Internet infrastructure to be further developed or adequately maintained. Part of our future success depends on the use of the Internet as a means to access public information and perform transactions electronically, including, for example, electronic filing of court documents. This in part requires the further development and maintenance of the Internet infrastructure. Among other things, this further development and maintenance will require a reliable network backbone with the necessary speed, data capacity, security, and timely development of complementary products for providing reliable Internet access and services. If this infrastructure fails to be further developed or be adequately maintained, our business would be harmed because users may not be able to access our government portals. Risks Associated with Selling Products and Services into the Public Sector Marketplace Selling products and services into the public sector poses unique challenges. We derive substantially all of our revenues from sales of software and services to state, county, and city governments, other municipal agencies, and other public entities. We expect that sales to public sector clients will continue to account for substantially all of our revenues in the future. We face many risks and challenges associated with contracting with governmental entities, including • Resource limitations caused by budgetary constraints, which may provide for a termination of executed contracts due to a lack of future funding • Long and complex sales cycles • Contract payments at times being subject to achieving implementation milestones, and we may have differences with clients as to whether milestones have been achieved • Political resistance to the concept of contracting with third-parties to provide IT solutions • Legislative changes affecting a local government’s authority to contract with third-parties • Varying bid procedures and internal processes for bid acceptance • Various other political factors, including changes in governmental administrations and personnel Each of these risks is outside our control. If we fail to adequately adapt to these risks and uncertainties, our financial performance could be adversely affected. A prolonged economic slowdown could harm our operations. A prolonged economic slowdown or recession could reduce demand for our software products and services. Local and state governments may face financial pressures that could in turn affect our growth rate and profitability in the future. There is no assurance that local and state spending levels will be unaffected by declining or stagnant general economic conditions, and if budget shortfalls occur, they may negatively impact local and state IT spending and could adversely affect our business. The open bidding process creates uncertainty in predicting future contract awards. Many governmental agencies purchase products and services through an open bidding process. Generally, a governmental entity will publish an established list of requirements requesting potential vendors to propose solutions for the established requirements. To respond successfully to these requests for proposals, we must accurately estimate our cost structure for servicing a proposed contract, the time required to establish operations for the proposed client, and the likely terms of any other third-party proposals submitted. We cannot guarantee that we will win any bids in the future through the request for proposal process, or that any winning bids will ultimately result in contracts on favorable terms. Our failure to secure contracts through the open bidding process, or to secure such contracts on favorable terms, may adversely affect our revenue and gross margins. We face significant competition from other vendors and potential new entrants into our markets. We believe we are a leading provider of integrated solutions for the public sector. However, we face competition from a variety of software vendors that offer products and services similar to those offered by us, as well as from companies offering to develop custom software. We compete based on a number of factors, including • The attractiveness of our “evergreen” business strategy • The breadth, depth, and quality of our product and service offerings • The ability to modify our offerings to accommodate particular clients’ needs • Technological innovation • Name recognition, reputation and references • Price • Our financial strength and stability We believe the market is highly fragmented with a large number of competitors that vary in size, product platform, and product scope. Our competitors include consulting firms, publicly held companies that focus on selected segments of the public sector market, and a significant number of smaller, privately held companies. Certain competitors have greater technical, marketing, and financial resources than we do. We cannot assure you that such competitors will not develop products or offer services that are superior to our products or services or that achieve greater market acceptance. We also compete with internal, centralized IT departments of governmental entities, which requires us to persuade the end-user to stop the internal service and outsource to us. In addition, our clients and prospective clients could elect to provide information management services internally through new or existing departments, which could reduce the market for our services. We could face additional competition as other established and emerging companies enter the public sector software application market and new products and technologies are introduced. Increased competition could result in pricing pressure, fewer client orders, reduced gross margins, and loss of market share. Current and potential competitors may make strategic acquisitions or establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third-parties, thereby increasing the ability of their products to address the needs of our prospective clients. It is possible that new competitors or alliances may emerge and rapidly gain significant market share. We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, and the failure to do so would have a material adverse effect upon our business. Fixed-price contracts may affect our profits. Some of our contracts are structured on a fixed-price basis, which can lead to various risks, including • The failure to accurately estimate the resources and time required for an engagement • The failure to effectively manage our clients’ expectations regarding the scope of services delivered for a fixed fee • The failure to timely and satisfactorily complete fixed-price engagements within budget If we do not adequately assess and manage these and other risks, we may be subject to cost overruns and penalties, which may harm our financial performance. Changes in the insurance markets may affect our business. Some of our clients, primarily those for our property appraisal services, require that we secure performance bonds before they will select us as their vendor. In addition, we have in the past been required to provide letters of credit as security for the issuance of a performance bond. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to secure such performance bonds in the future on terms that are favorable to us, if at all. Our inability to obtain performance bonds on favorable terms or at all could impact our future ability to win some contract awards, particularly large property appraisal services contracts, which could negatively impact revenues. In addition, the general insurance markets may experience volatility, which may lead to future increases in our general and administrative expenses and negatively impact our operating results. Risks Associated with Our Periodic Results and Stock Price Software revenue recognition rules may require us to delay revenue recognition into future periods. We have in the past had to, and may in the future be required to, defer revenue recognition for software license fees due to several factors, including • License agreements include applications that are under development or other undelivered elements • Client contracts require the delivery of services considered essential to the functionality of the software, including significant modifications, customization, or complex interfaces, that could delay product delivery or acceptance • The transaction involves customer acceptance criteria with a right to refund Because of these factors and other specific requirements for software revenue recognition under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, we must have very precise terms in our contracts to recognize revenue upon the delivery and installation of our software or performance of services. Negotiation of mutually acceptable terms and conditions may extend the sales cycle. We are not always able to negotiate terms and conditions that permit revenue recognition at the time of delivery or even upon project completion. Fluctuations in quarterly revenue could adversely impact our operating results and stock price. Our revenues and operating results are difficult to predict and may fluctuate substantially from quarter to quarter for a variety of reasons, including • Prospective clients’ contracting decisions are often made in the last few weeks of a quarter • The size of license transactions can vary significantly • Clients may unexpectedly postpone or cancel procurement processes due to changes in strategic priorities, project objectives, budget, or personnel • Client purchasing processes vary significantly and a client’s internal approval, expenditure authorization, and contract negotiation processes can be difficult and time consuming to complete, even after selection of a vendor • The number, timing, and significance of software product enhancements and new software product announcements by us and our competitors may affect purchase decisions • We may have to defer revenues under our revenue recognition policies • Clients may elect subscription-based arrangements, which result in lower software license revenues in the initial year as compared to traditional, on-premise software license arrangements, but generate higher overall subscription-based revenues over the term of the contract In each fiscal quarter, our expense levels, operating costs, and hiring plans are based to some extent on projections of future revenues and are relatively fixed. If our actual revenues fall below expectations, we could experience a reduction in operating results. Also, if actual revenues or earnings for any given quarter fall below expectations, it may lead to a decline in our stock price. Increases in service revenue as a percentage of total revenues could decrease overall margins. We realize lower margins on software and appraisal service revenues than on license revenue. The majority of our contracts include both software licenses and software services. Therefore, an increase in the percentage of software service and appraisal service revenue compared to license revenue could have a detrimental impact on our overall gross margins and could adversely affect operating results. Our stock price may be volatile. The market price of our common stock may be volatile. Examples of factors that may significantly impact our stock price include • Actual or anticipated fluctuations in our operating results • Announcements of technological innovations, new products, or new contracts by us or our competitors • Developments with respect to patents, copyrights, or other proprietary rights • Conditions and trends in the software and other technology industries • Adoption of new accounting standards affecting the software industry • Changes in financial estimates by securities analysts • General market conditions and other factors In addition, the stock market has from time to time experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that have particularly affected the market prices of technology company stocks and may in the future adversely affect the market price of our stock. Sometimes, securities class action litigation is filed following periods of volatility in the market price of a particular company’s securities. We cannot assure you that similar litigation will not occur in the future with respect to us. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could have a material adverse effect upon our financial performance. Our financial outlook may not be realized. From time to time, in press releases and otherwise, we may publish forecasts or other forward-looking statements regarding our results, including estimated revenues or earnings. Any forecast of our future performance reflects various assumptions. These assumptions are subject to significant uncertainties, and as a matter of course, any number of them may prove to be incorrect. Further, the achievement of any forecast depends on numerous risks and other factors (including those described in this discussion), many of which are beyond our control. As a result, we cannot be certain that our performance will be consistent with any management forecasts or that the variation from such forecasts will not be material and adverse. Current and potential stockholders are cautioned not to base their entire analysis of our business and prospects upon isolated predictions, but instead are encouraged to utilize our entire publicly available mix of historical and forward-looking information, as well as other available information regarding us, our products and services, and the software industry when evaluating our prospective results of operations. Risks Associated with Our Growth Strategy and Other General Corporate Risks We may experience difficulties in executing our acquisition strategy. A material portion of our historical growth has resulted from strategic acquisitions. Although our focus is on internal growth, we will continue to identify and pursue strategic acquisitions with suitable candidates. These transactions involve significant challenges and risks, including risks that a transaction does not advance our business strategy; that we do not achieve the expected return on our investment; that we have difficulty integrating business systems and technology; that we have difficulty retaining or integrating new employees; that the transactions distract management from our other businesses; that we acquire unforeseen liabilities; and other unanticipated events. Our future success will depend, in part, on our ability to successfully integrate future acquisitions into our operations. It may take longer than expected to realize the full benefits of these transactions, such as increased revenue, enhanced efficiencies, or increased market share, or the benefits may be ultimately less than we expected. Although we conduct due diligence reviews of potential acquisition candidates, we may not identify all material liabilities or risks related to acquisition candidates. There can be no assurance that any such strategic acquisitions will be accomplished on favorable terms or will result in profitable operations. Our failure to properly manage growth could adversely affect our business. We have expanded our operations significantly since 1998, when we entered the business of providing software solutions and services to the public sector. We intend to continue expansion in the foreseeable future to pursue existing and potential market opportunities. This growth places significant demands on management and operational resources. In order to manage growth effectively, we must implement and improve our operational systems, procedures, and controls on a timely basis. If we fail to implement these systems, our business may be materially adversely affected. We may be unable to hire, integrate, and retain qualified personnel. Our continued success will depend upon the availability and performance of our key management, sales, marketing, client support, and product development personnel. The loss of key management or technical personnel could adversely affect us. We believe that our continued success will depend in large part upon our ability to attract, integrate, and retain such personnel. We have at times experienced and continue to experience difficulty in recruiting qualified personnel. Competition for qualified software development, sales, and other personnel is intense, and we cannot assure you that we will be successful in attracting and retaining such personnel. Compliance with changing regulation of corporate governance may result in additional expenses. Changing laws, regulations, and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure can create uncertainty for public companies. The costs required to comply with such evolving laws are difficult to predict. To maintain high standards of corporate governance and public disclosure, we intend to invest all reasonably necessary resources to comply with evolving standards. This investment may result in an unforeseen increase in general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities, which may harm our operating results. We don’t foresee paying dividends on our common stock. We have not declared nor paid a cash dividend since we entered the business of providing software solutions and services to the public sector in 1998. We intend to retain earnings for use in the operation and expansion of our business. We do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Provisions in our certificate of incorporation, bylaws, and Delaware law could deter takeover attempts. Our board of directors may issue up to 1,000,000 shares of preferred stock and may determine the price, rights, preferences, privileges, and restrictions, including voting and conversion rights, of these preferred shares. These determinations may be made without any further vote or action by our stockholders. The rights of the holders of our common stock will be subject to, and may be adversely affected by, the rights of the holders of any preferred stock that may be issued in the future. The issuance of preferred stock may make it more difficult for a third-party to acquire a majority of our outstanding voting stock. In addition, some provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws, and the Delaware General Corporation Law could also delay, prevent, or make more difficult a merger, tender offer, or proxy contest involving us. ITEM 1B.