Rackspace Technology (RXT) 10-K2021 FY Annual report

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark one)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

1 Fanatical Place

City of Windcrest

San Antonio, Texas 78218

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

(210) 312-4000

(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)

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

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

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

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

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑ No ☐

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

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

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

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑

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

On February 22, 2022, 211,969,903 shares of the registrant’s common stock, par value $0.01 per share, were outstanding.

RACKSPACE TECHNOLOGY, INC.

COMMONLY USED OR DEFINED TERMS

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

TRADEMARKS, TRADE NAMES AND SERVICE MARKS

PART I

ITEM 1 – BUSINESS

Overview

Rackspace Technology is a leading end-to-end multicloud technology services company. We design, build, and operate our customers’ cloud environments across all major technology platforms, irrespective of technology stack or deployment model. We partner with our customers at every stage of their cloud journey, enabling them to modernize applications, build new products and adopt innovative technologies.

Cloud technology is reinventing how companies store, process and manage their data.

Businesses have accelerated their adoption of cloud technologies in recent years due to:

In addition, the cost to maintain a company-owned data center (known in industry parlance as “on-premises” or “on-prem” data centers) has become cost prohibitive since companies must constantly upgrade hardware, maintain physical infrastructure and constantly apply security patches to counteract emerging security threats. Companies are also looking to reduce their on-premises operations budgets to fund the build-out of their cloud management operations and skill base.

At the same time, several dominant players have emerged in the cloud computing industry: the “hyperscalers” – AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, which are the leading public cloud providers; as well as VMware, which is a leading provider of private cloud technology. These technology providers operate cloud environments at a massive scale and have a significant cost-benefit advantage compared to a company-owned on-prem data center. They can also easily invest billions of dollars in product development and innovation, maintenance of the physical infrastructure and upkeep of important security protocols and technology.

As a result of these developments, most companies will become increasingly dependent on cloud technologies for most of their new workloads, as well as a portion of existing workloads, over the coming years.

The multicloud paradigm brings additional complexity for businesses moving to the cloud.

Moving to the cloud is not as simple as selecting a single platform and migrating data. The cloud is taking market share because it is a structurally different platform with structurally different cost dynamics. Oftentimes, new code must be written, or existing code must be re-written, to take full advantage of cloud capabilities. Likewise, simply moving existing code to the cloud (known as “lifting and shifting”) can often result in high or unforeseen cost over-runs. The efficiencies of cloud are real, but it takes substantial effort to realize them.

Companies also face the challenge of managing multiple clouds. They often employ more than one cloud solution for several business reasons:

In addition, some business applications cannot migrate to the cloud and must remain on mature cloud platforms like private cloud, or even on-prem data centers, for various reasons:

As a result, businesses quickly find themselves in a multicloud paradigm that includes two or more hyperscaler platforms, private cloud and data and applications that are hosted on-premises or in a colocation or managed hosting facility. In such a complex environment, even the most sophisticated IT organizations at the largest multinational companies require outside resources to manage their multicloud presence.

Rackspace Technology is a leading pure-play cloud solutions company.

We help companies of all sizes manage their transition to the cloud, make sense of their IT infrastructure, migrate their data to the cloud, optimize their cloud presence on an ongoing basis and manage the workloads best left to managed hosting or other mature platforms.

Few companies have the internal resources required to effectively manage a transition to the cloud. Building a well-rounded and capable in-house team would require hiring experts on all three hyperscaler platforms as well as private cloud, colocation and managed hosting. We believe professionals with these skill sets are challenging for companies to source and hire because they generally prefer to work at a technology company. We believe this creates an opportunity for a service partner like Rackspace Technology which enables businesses to fully embrace the power of all cloud technologies.

Our team of 6,600 highly skilled Rackers, including consultants and engineers, partners with companies at every stage of their cloud transformation journey and helps them:

We aim to be our customers’ most trusted advisor and services partner in their path to cloud transformation and to accelerate the value of their cloud investments. We give customers the ability to make informed decisions when choosing the right technologies, and we recommend solutions based on each customer’s unique objectives. In this way, we empower our customers to harness the full benefits of cloud adoption.

We differentiate ourselves from other service providers by:

We have a culture of innovation that permeates all that we do. Our Rackers gather insights from customers, cloud partners and each other to design, implement and operate advanced cloud environments. With our deep technical expertise, we build solutions alongside our customers to solve their most complex business challenges and explore their most promising business opportunities. Our tight-knit relationships with leading cloud partners enable Rackers to be on the front lines of cloud technology and among the first to utilize the latest capabilities of the cloud when our cloud partners launch new solutions. Our partnerships, Rackers and culture combine to ensure that we are at the forefront of major trends in technology, including cloud native application development, Internet of Things and containers. We believe this expertise - and our ability to deliver it effectively - enables our customers to innovate faster and stay ahead of their competition.

Rackspace Fabric, our proprietary cloud software, is a significant differentiator.

Rackspace Fabric was built over the course of our two decades of experience in the cloud business. We leverage automation to reduce the amount of manual labor associated with serving our customers as well as to improve efficiency. Whenever there is repetitive, manual labor associated with customer-related tasks, we automate the task. We also use advanced machine learning tools to identify additional work that can be automated. This has provided Rackspace Technology with a critical mass of automation, based upon institutional knowledge and know-how, that we continue to grow incrementally every year.

This is in direct contrast to our competition, many of whom charge for their services on a markup over labor costs, and therefore are not incentivized to employ automation in order to reduce customer costs.

Cloud growth is accelerating.

Because of the factors discussed above, both small and medium sized businesses and large multinational enterprises alike will have to build and/or migrate some or all of their business to the cloud to stay competitive and reap the advantages that the cloud computing paradigm provides.

As a result, cloud growth has accelerated. In 2020, the three hyperscalers recorded new cloud revenue of over $20 billion. In 2021, this grew to $30 billion. And in 2022, industry analysts expect the hyperscalers to recognize $40 billion of new cloud revenue - a 100% increase in just two years. (Source: Oppenheimer)

In addition, at its 2021 user conference, AWS, the leading cloud industry hyperscaler, stated that according to its analysts, only 5 to 15 percent of IT spending has moved to the cloud. This would indicate that cloud adoption is still in the very early stages.

Our go-to-market and service-delivery strategy.

Our History

Rackspace Technology’s predecessor company was founded in 1998, and was focused primarily on providing outsourced, dedicated IT infrastructure, primarily for small and mid-sized businesses. The predecessor company was publicly traded from its initial public offering in August 2008 until it was taken private in a leveraged buyout in November 2016. Rackspace Technology subsequently returned to the public markets through an initial public offering in August 2020.

During the time that Rackspace Technology was a private company from 2016 to 2020, management focused on transforming the business to serve companies that were migrating to the cloud. This included forging and strengthening partnerships with the major infrastructure providers such as AWS, Google, Microsoft and VMware; enhancing the company’s service offerings, including professional services, managed security and data services; building an enterprise sales force and professional services-driven sales approach to penetrate a broader market opportunity; and expanding the company’s geographic presence.

Today, we are a trusted partner to the global cloud ecosystem. We maintain close relationships with major cloud infrastructure and application vendors, enabling us to provide our customers with complete, unbiased multicloud services, all through our single customer interface.

Our Integrated Services Portfolio

We serve our customers through an integrated services portfolio organized in two segments—Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform Services. The services across these two segments are described in more detail below:

We offer professional services across our entire portfolio, including multicloud solutions, applications, security and data. As part of our professional services process, we meet customers at every stage of their cloud journey and design solutions focused on modernizing their infrastructure and applications to enhance the value of their cloud technologies. This process often serves as the starting point for new business opportunities; following our initial professional services engagement, a customer will typically use any combination of our managed services under long-term contracts, and will often use our professional services multiple times as their technology needs continue to evolve. For some new customer relationships, the early stages of the relationship can be weighted toward infrastructure revenue; in these cases, our customer success sales team is tasked with up-selling and cross-selling additional services, including professional services, to enhance the overall customer relationship.

In addition to our integrated services portfolio described above, we also offer customers our OpenStack Public Cloud solution, our third reporting segment, which represents our legacy business prior to our pivot to multicloud. While we expect to continue to offer our OpenStack Public Cloud solution, we ceased to actively market it to customers in 2017.

Our Technology Platform

Our technology platform is at the center of the Fanatical Customer Experience that we deliver to customers. Our technologies focus on removing the complexities of multicloud deployments, unifying compelling aspects of the experience for our customers and enabling us to deliver scalable solutions.

Our Growth Strategies

In order to continue to drive growth and capture our large market opportunity, key elements of our growth strategies include:

We believe our technology and services expertise positions us well to compete with other technology and services providers. We face competition primarily from:

We believe that we compare favorably on the basis of the factors listed above. However, many of our competitors have: substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources; relationships with large vendor partners; larger global presence; larger customer bases; longer operating histories; greater brand recognition; and more established relationships in the industry than we do. Furthermore, new entrants not currently considered to be competitors may enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships or strategic relationships.

Our Customers

We serve a wide range of customers across geography, size and industry.

Representative customers by industry vertical are listed below:

Our Approach to Partnerships

We believe these relationships are beneficial to us, our partners and our customers. We and our partners both receive critical inputs for further innovation and benefit from joint go-to-market initiatives, while our customers are able to maximize their use of innovative technologies more efficiently, reduce time-to-market and remain competitive.

Sales and Marketing

Professional services are at the core of our consultative sales model and often serve as the gateway to our platform. For new business opportunities, our professional services organization engages closely with a customer to assess and design the best cloud solution for that customer. This is often the first step toward a long-term services agreement with a customer where we manage a customer’s cloud operations and give them the flexibility to evolve their spend with us as their needs change over time.

Our Culture

We offer Rackers various professional development opportunities through Rackspace University, along with award-winning onboarding and leadership development programs, enabling them to enhance their capabilities across technologies and further their professional growth.

Additionally, in 2021 we were recognized with several workplace-related awards:

Our Rackers are passionate about serving our communities as well. Rackspace Technology provides 40 hours of paid time for each Racker to volunteer annually, with over 26,000 volunteer hours logged for the year ended December 31, 2021. The Rackspace Foundation, a Racker-funded nonprofit organization, has been supporting underserved San Antonio-area schools through charitable grants since 2008.

Our Employees

As of December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 6,600 Rackers in 19 countries, including 3,200 Rackers in North America, 1,000 Rackers in EMEA, 2,300 in APJ and 100 Rackers in Australia and New Zealand. Of our North American Rackers, approximately 1,100 work from our corporate headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. As of December 31, 2021, approximately 40% of all Rackers were classified as work-from-home. None of our employees are represented by a collective bargaining agreement, nor have we experienced any work stoppages.

Seasonality

Our business is not materially affected by seasonal trends.

Other Information

Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements for our annual stockholders’ meetings and amendments to those reports are available free of charge on our website, www.rackspace.com. Our website and the information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website will not be deemed to be incorporated by reference in, and are not considered part of, this Annual Report. In addition, we will provide electronic or paper copies of our filings free of charge upon request.

The SEC maintains an internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding registrants that file electronically with the SEC. You can review copies of these documents on the SEC's website. The SEC’s website address is www.sec.gov.

Any references to websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

ITEM 1A – RISK FACTORS

Summary

Our ability to execute our strategies is subject to certain risks. The risks described under the heading “Risk Factors” immediately following this summary may cause us not to realize the full benefits of our competitive strengths or may cause us to be unable to successfully execute all or part of our strategies. Some of the more significant challenges and risks we face include the following:

Risk Factors

Risks Related to Our Business

If we are unable to attract new customers, retain existing customers and sell additional services and sell comparable gross margin services to customers, our revenue and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our ability to maintain or increase our revenues and profit may be impacted by a number of factors, including our ability to attract new customers, retain existing customers and sell additional services and comparable gross margin services to our customers. In addition, as we seek to grow our customer base increasingly through outbound sales, we expect to incur higher customer acquisition costs and, to the extent we are unable to retain and sell additional services to existing customers, our revenue and results of operations may decrease.

Growth in the demand for our services may be inhibited and we may be unable to profitably maintain or grow our customer base for a number of reasons, such as:

Moreover, we may face difficulty retaining existing customers over the long term. Certain customer contracts, particularly within our Multicloud Services segment, typically have initial terms (typically from 12 to 36 months) and, unless terminated, may be renewed or automatically extended for shorter, rolling periods after the initial term. Our customers have no obligation to renew their services after their initial contract periods expire and any termination fees associated with an early termination may not be sufficient to recover our costs associated with such contracts. In addition, many of our other service offerings, including most of our public cloud offerings, can be based on a consumption model and can be canceled at any time without penalty. As a result, we may face high rates of customer churn if we are unable to meet our customer needs, requirements and preferences.

Our costs associated with generating revenue from existing customers are generally lower than costs associated with generating revenue from new customers, and depending on the customer and the service offering, there may be substantial variation in the gross margins associated with existing and new customers. Any failure by us in continuing to attract new customers or grow our revenue from existing customers could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business is affected by general economic conditions and uncertainties affecting markets in which we operate and economic volatility could adversely impact our business.

Our overall performance depends in part on worldwide economic and geopolitical conditions. The U.S., the U.K. and other key international economies have experienced cyclical downturns from time to time in which economic activity was impacted by falling demand for a variety of goods and services, restricted credit, poor liquidity, reduced corporate profitability, volatility in credit, equity and foreign exchange markets, bankruptcies and overall uncertainty with respect to the economy. These economic conditions can arise suddenly and the full impact of such conditions can remain uncertain. In addition, geopolitical developments, such as existing and potential trade wars and other events beyond our control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the imposition of related public health measures and travel restrictions, and civil unrest can increase levels of political and economic unpredictability globally and increase the volatility of global financial markets. Any of these effects could have a material and adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus, referred to as COVID-19, has spread globally, including within the U.S., and resulted in the World Health Organization declaring the outbreak a “pandemic” in March 2020, with variant strains of the virus continuing to be identified globally. Currently, COVID-19 has not had a significant impact on our operations or financial performance; however, the ultimate extent of the impact of COVID-19 on our operational and financial performance will depend on certain developments, including the duration and spread of the outbreak, changes in governmental regulation in response to the virus, the pace of economic recovery, the possible resurgence in the spread of the virus or any variant strain(s) of the virus, advances in testing, treatment, and prevention, including the efficacy and availability of vaccines, its impact on our customers, vendors and employees and its impact on our sales cycles as well as industry events, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. For example, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our facilities have shifted to a work from home environment for employees whose presence in the office is nonessential and if we continue to do so for extended periods of time, we may not meet our on-going employment commitments under certain economic incentive agreements which may result in our losing future tax benefits and having to repay certain tax benefits already received. In addition, we have and may in the future continue to postpone or cancel customer, employee or industry events, which could impact our brand visibility and our ability to obtain new customers. Moreover, any deterioration in economic conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic can affect the rate of IT spending, and any reductions may fall disproportionately on outsourced and cloud-based solutions like ours. In addition, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may be exacerbated by the disproportionate impact it is having on small and medium businesses that make a large portion of our customer base, many of which may be forced to shut down or limit operations for an indefinite period of time. Economic weakness, customer financial difficulties and constrained spending on IT operations could adversely affect our customers’ ability or willingness to purchase our service offerings, delay purchasing decisions and lengthen our sales cycles, reduce the value or duration of their subscription contracts, or increase churn, all of which could have a material and adverse effect on our sales and operating

results. To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business and financial results, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, such as those relating to our high level of indebtedness, our need to generate sufficient cash flows to service our indebtedness and our ability to comply with the covenants contained in the agreements that govern our indebtedness.

If we are unable to successfully execute our strategies and continue to develop and sell the services and solutions our customers demand, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.

We must adapt to rapidly changing customer demands and preferences in order to successfully execute our strategies. This requires us to anticipate and respond to customer demands and preferences, address business model shifts, optimize our go-to-market execution by improving our cost structure, align sales coverage with strategic goals, improve channel execution and strengthen our services and capabilities in our areas of strategic focus. Any failure to successfully execute our strategies, including any failure to invest in strategic growth areas, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not realize any or all of our estimated cost savings, which would have a negative effect on our results of operations.

On July 21, 2021, we committed to the July 2021 Restructuring Plan which will drive a change in the type and location of certain positions and is expected to result in the termination of approximately 10% of our workforce. Any cost savings that we realize from such efforts may differ materially from our estimates. The estimates contained herein are our current estimates, but they involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such estimates. In addition, any cost savings that we realize may be offset, in whole or in part, by reductions in revenues, or through increases in other expenses. Our cost savings plans are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may change at any time. We cannot assure you that cost-savings initiatives will be completed as anticipated or that the benefits we expect will be achieved on a timely basis or at all.

Our strategies require significant investments that may adversely affect our near-term revenue growth and results of operations.

We expect the implementation of our strategies to require significant investments, and the investments we must make could result in lower gross margins and raise our operating expenses and capital expenditures. The risks and challenges we face in connection with our strategies include upgrading and integrating our service offerings, expanding our professional services capability, expanding into new geographies, growing in geographies where we currently have a small presence and ensuring that the performance, features and reliability of our service offerings and our customer service remain competitive in a rapidly changing technological environment. These investments may adversely affect our near-term revenue growth and results of operations, and we cannot assure that they will ultimately be successful.

We have a history of losses and may not be able to achieve profitability in the future.

We incurred net losses of $102.3 million, $245.8 million and $218.3 million in the fiscal years ended December 31, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. We may not be able to achieve profitability in the future or on a consistent basis. We have incurred substantial expenses and expended significant resources to market, promote, and sell our services, and we have substantial debt service payments. Our ability to achieve or maintain profitability will depend on our ability to increase our revenue, manage our cost structure, and avoid significant liabilities. Revenue growth may slow or revenue may decline for a number of reasons, including general macroeconomic conditions, increasing competition, or a decrease in the growth of the markets in which we operate. Additionally, we may encounter unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods. Any failure to increase our revenue or manage our expenses could prevent us from achieving profitability at all or on a consistent basis, which would cause our business, financial condition and results of operations to suffer.

Our results of operations have historically varied and may fluctuate significantly, which could make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our results of operations to fall below investor or analyst expectations.

Our results of operations may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, including many of the risks described in this section, many of which are outside of our control. Many of these factors outside our control could result in increased costs, decreases in the amount of expected revenue and diversion of management’s time and energy, which could materially and adversely impact our business. Our period-to-period results of operations are not necessarily an indication of our future operating performance. Similarly, our Bookings and ARR metrics may not provide an accurate indication of our future or expected results of operations. For instance, we expect that Bookings could fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis based on the timing of one or more customer purchase decisions, which we cannot control, and which makes it difficult for us to accurately predict Bookings for any future period. In addition, in calculating Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), we utilize estimates of our net effective tax rate, which may fluctuate based on a number of factors, including tax law changes and the geographic distribution of our profits and losses. As a result, our calculation of Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss) could change from period to period, including due to factors not tied to our financial performance. Furthermore, our revenue, gross margins and profitability in any given period are dependent partially on the service, customer and geographic mix reflected in the respective period. Variations in cost structure and gross margins across business units and services may lead to operating profit volatility on an annual and quarterly basis. Fluctuations in our revenue can lead to even greater fluctuations in our results of operations. Our budgeted expense levels depend in part on our expectations of long-term future revenue. Given the fixed nature of certain operating costs related to our personnel and facilities, any substantial adjustment to our expenses to account for lower than expected levels of revenue will be difficult. Consequently, if our revenue does not meet projected levels, our operating expenses would be high relative to our revenue, which would negatively affect our operating performance. If our revenue or operating results do not meet or exceed the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the price of our common stock may decline.

Our key operating metrics are subject to assumptions and limitations and may not provide an accurate indication of our future or expected results.

Our key operating metrics, including Bookings and ARR, are based on numerous assumptions and limitations, are calculated using our internal data that have not been independently verified by third parties and may not provide an accurate indication of our future or expected results. For instance, our Bookings metric is calculated by annualizing the monthly value of recurring customer contracts entered into during a period and adding the actual (not annualized) estimated value of professional services consulting, advisory or project-based orders received during the period, but does not reflect actual or anticipated contract non-renewals or service cancellations (which we do not report), and to the extent we experience such contract non-renewals or service cancellations, will not result in revenue in future periods. Bookings also does not differentiate between recurring and non-recurring revenue, may not correlate to the time period in which revenue is recognized or anticipated to be recognized and is increased by a customer moving from one workload to another workload (which would not be an increase if a customer had a net zero revenue impact in a single workload from a new contract and cancellation). As a result, the assumptions used in calculating Bookings are subject to several limitations. ARR is a historical measure that annualizes our revenue for a previously completed fiscal quarter and therefore is not a reliable indicator of our future or expected results, and ARR also does not reflect any actual or anticipated reductions in revenue due to contract non-renewals or service cancellations. As a result, our key operating metrics may not reflect our actual performance, and investors should consider each one of our key operating metrics in light of the assumptions used in calculating the metric and limitations as a result thereof. In addition, investors should not place undue reliance on our key operating metrics as indicators of our future or expected results. Moreover, our key operating metrics may differ from similarly titled metrics presented by other companies and may not be comparable to such other metrics. See Item 7 of Part II, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition And Results of Operations - "Key Operating Metrics" for more information regarding our key operating metrics.

We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors.

The market for our services is highly competitive, quickly evolving and subject to rapid changes in technology. We expect to continue to face intense competition from our existing competitors as well as additional competition from new market entrants in the future as the market for our services continues to grow.

Our current and potential competitors vary by size, service offerings and geographic region. These competitors may elect to partner with each other or with focused companies to grow their businesses. They include:

The primary competitive factors in our market are: focus on the cloud, technology and service expertise, customer experience, speed of innovation, strength of relationships with technology partners, automation and scalability, standardized operational processes, geographic reach, brand recognition and reputation and price.

Many of our current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources; relationships with large vendor partners; larger global presence; larger customer bases; longer operating histories; greater brand recognition; and more established relationships in the industry than we do. As a result, some of these competitors may be able to:

To the extent we face increased price competition, we may have to lower the prices of certain of our services in the future to stay competitive, while simultaneously seeking to maintain or improve our revenue and gross margin.

In addition, consolidation activity through strategic mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures may result in new competitors that can offer a broader range of products and services, may have greater scale or a lower cost structure. To the extent such consolidation results in the ability of vertically-integrated companies to offer more integrated services to customers than we can, customers may prefer the single-source approach and direct more business to such competitors, thereby impairing our competitive position. Furthermore, new entrants not currently considered to be competitors may enter the market through acquisitions, partnerships or strategic relationships. As we look to market and sell our services to potential customers, we must convince their internal stakeholders that our services are superior to their current solutions. If we are unable to anticipate or react to these competitive challenges, our competitive position would weaken, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may from time to time enter into strategic relationships with one or more of our competitors. By way of example, we have non-exclusive managed service provider relationships with AWS, Microsoft and Google and have entered into agreements with colocation service providers to provide us with colocation space.

Our business is highly dependent on our ability to maintain favorable relationships with our third-party cloud infrastructure providers and the ability of those third-party cloud infrastructure providers to provide the services and features that our customers desire.

We have non-exclusive managed service provider relationships with AWS, Microsoft and Google. Some of our customers first select their cloud infrastructure platform provider and then engage us to provide the managed services for the selected platform and, more often than not, we resell the cloud infrastructure to the customer (although some customers may elect to purchase the cloud infrastructure directly from the providers). Our agreements with AWS, Microsoft and Google may be terminated at will by the counterparty. If we are unable to maintain these relationships on favorable terms, or at all, we may not be able to retain our current customers or attract new customers, which could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, if our cloud infrastructure providers are unable to provide the types of services and features that meet customer needs, our customers may migrate to alternative cloud infrastructure providers that we may not have the ability to resell and/or support or may not be able to support on a competitive cost structure, which could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on our relationships with third-party cloud infrastructure providers to help drive revenue to our business. Most of these providers offer services that are complementary to our services; however, some may compete with us in one or more of our service offerings. These providers may decide in the future to terminate their agreements with us and/or to market and sell a competitor’s or their own services rather than ours, which could cause our revenue to decline. Also, we derive tangible and intangible benefits from our association with some of these providers, particularly high-profile providers that reach a large number of companies through the Internet. If a substantial number of these providers terminate their relationship with us, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our referral and reseller partners provide revenue to our business, and we benefit from our association with them. The loss of these participants could adversely affect our business.

Our referral and reseller partners drive revenue to our business. Most of these partners offer services that are complementary to our services; however, some may actually compete with us in one or more of our service offerings. These referral and reseller partners may decide in the future to terminate their agreements with us and/or to market and sell a competitor’s or their own services rather than ours, which could cause our revenue to decline. Also, we derive tangible and intangible benefits from our association with some of our referral and reseller partners, particularly high-profile partners that reach a large number of companies through the Internet. If a substantial number of these partners terminate their relationships with us, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We also receive payments and credits from some of our referral and reseller partners, including consideration under volume incentive programs and shared marketing expense programs. Our referral and reseller partners may decide to terminate or reduce the benefits under their incentive programs, or change the conditions under which we may obtain such benefits, and we may fail to achieve the volumes on which our forecasts for incentive payments and credits are based. Any sizable reduction, termination or significant delay in receiving benefits under these programs could adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we are unable to timely react to any changes in our referral and reseller partners’ programs, such as the elimination of funding for some of the activities for which we have been compensated in the past, such changes could adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to hire and retain qualified employees and management personnel, our strategies and our business could be harmed.

Our ability to be successful and to execute on our strategies depends on our ability to identify, hire, train and retain qualified executives, IT professionals, technical engineers, software developers, operations employees and sales and senior management personnel who maintain relationships with our customers and who can provide the technical, strategic and marketing skills required for our company to grow. Our ability to execute on our sales strategy is also dependent on our ability to identify, hire, train and retain a sufficient number of qualified sales personnel. There is a shortage of qualified personnel in these fields, and like many other companies we have recently encountered additional challenges in hiring and retaining qualified personnel. We compete with other companies for this limited pool of potential employees. Furthermore, the implementation of our strategies will result in changes throughout our business, which may create uncertainty for our employees. Such uncertainties may impair our ability to attract, retain and motivate key personnel and could cause customers, suppliers and others who deal with us to seek to change existing business relationships. In addition, the industry in which we operate is generally characterized by significant competition for skilled personnel, and as our industry becomes more competitive, it could become especially difficult to retain personnel with unique in-demand skills and knowledge, whom we would expect to become recruiting targets for our competitors. There is no assurance that we will be able to recruit or retain qualified personnel or successfully transition knowledge from departing employees, and this failure could cause a dilution of our service-oriented culture and our inability to develop and deliver existing or new operations and services, which could cause our business to be negatively impacted.

Security breaches, cyber-attacks and other interruptions to our or our third-party service providers’ infrastructure may disrupt our internal operations and we may be exposed to claims and liability, lose customers, suffer harm to our reputation, lose business-critical compliance certifications and incur additional costs.

We are materially dependent upon our networks, information technology infrastructure and related technology systems to provide services to our customers and to manage our internal operations. Many of our customers require access to our services on a continuous basis and may be materially impaired by interruptions in our or our third-party service providers’ infrastructure. The services we offer also involve the transmission of large amounts of sensitive and proprietary information over public communications networks, as well as the processing and storage of confidential customer information, which may include information subject to stringent domestic and foreign data protection laws, including those governing personally identifiable information, protected health information or other types of sensitive data. We also process, store and transmit our own data as part of our business and operations, which may include personally identifiable, confidential or proprietary information.

our security costs (including spending material resources to investigate or correct the breach or incident and to prevent future security breaches and incidents), disruption of normal business operations, the impairment or loss of industry certifications and government sanctions (including debarment), all of which could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The security of our services is important in our customers’ decisions to purchase or use our services. Threats to our infrastructure may not only affect the data that we own but also the data belonging to our customers. When customers use our services, they rely on the security of our infrastructure, including hardware and other elements provided by third parties, to ensure the reliability of our services and the protection of their data. We also offer professional services to our customers where we consult on data center solutions and assist with implementations. We offer managed services domestically and in some jurisdictions outside of the U.S. where we manage the data center infrastructure for our customers. An actual or perceived breach of, or other security incident relating to, our cloud storage systems and networks could result in significant loss. In the event of a claim, we could be liable for substantial damage awards that may significantly exceed our liability insurance coverage by unknown but significant amounts, which could have a material and adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, we cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will cover any claims against us relating to any such incident, will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that our insurers will not deny coverage as to any such claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could adversely affect our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations. The costs could be exacerbated by regulatory fines and penalties, notification costs and the loss of revenue due to brand and reputational harm.

Similar security risks exist with respect to our business partners and the third-party vendors that we rely on for aspects of our IT support services and administrative functions, including the systems owned, operated or controlled by other unaffiliated operators to the extent we rely on such other systems to deliver services to our customers. Our ability to monitor our third-party service providers’ data security is limited. As a result, we are subject to the risk that cyber-attacks on, or other security incidents affecting, our business partners and third-party vendors may adversely affect our business even if an attack or breach does not directly impact our systems. It is also possible that security breaches sustained by, or other security incidents affecting, our competitors could result in negative publicity for our entire industry that indirectly harms our reputation and diminishes demand for our services.

In addition, our customers require and expect that we maintain industry-related compliance certifications, such as International Organization for Standardization ("ISO") 27001, Service Organization Controls ("SOC 1, 2, 3") and Payment Card Industry ("PCI"), Federal Information Security Management Act ("FISMA"), Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program ("FedRAMP") and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA") in the U.S., Information Security Registered Assessors Program ("IRAP") in Australia and Public Services Network ("PSN") in the U.K. There are significant costs associated with maintaining existing and implementing any newly-adopted industry-related compliance certifications, including costs associated with retroactively building security controls into services which may involve re-engineering technology, processes and staffing. The inability to maintain applicable compliance certifications could result in monetary fines, disruptive participation in forensic audits due to a breach, security-related control failures, customer contract breaches, customer churn and brand and reputational harm.

Our inability to prevent service disruptions and ensure network uptime could lead to significant costs and could harm our business reputation and have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our value proposition to customers is highly dependent on the ability of our existing and potential customers to access our services and platform capabilities at any time and within an acceptable amount of time. We have experienced interruptions in service in the past and may in the future experience service interruptions due to such things as power outages, power equipment failures, cooling equipment failures, network connectivity downtime, routing problems, security issues, hard drive failures, database corruption, system failures, natural disasters, software failures, human and software errors, denial-of-service attacks and other computer failures. Because our ability to attract and retain customers depends on our ability to provide customers with highly reliable service, even minor interruptions in our service could harm our reputation.

Because our service offerings do not require geographic proximity of our data centers to our customers, our infrastructure is consolidated into a few large facilities. Accordingly, any failure or downtime in one of our data center facilities could affect a significant percentage of our customers. The total destruction or severe impairment of any of our data center facilities could result in significant downtime of our services and the loss of customer data. In addition, it may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our performance, especially during peak usage times and as our services and platform capabilities become more complex and our user traffic increases. To the extent that our facilities fail or experience downtime or we do not effectively upgrade our systems as needed or continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected. Service interruptions continue to be a significant risk for us and could materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Any future service interruptions could:

Our customer agreements include certain service level commitments to our customers relating primarily to network uptime, critical infrastructure availability and hardware replacement. If we are unable to meet the stated service level commitments, we may be contractually obligated to provide these customers with service credits for a portion of the service fees paid by our customers. As a result, a failure to deliver services for a relatively short duration could cause us to issue these credits to a large number of affected customers. In addition, we cannot be assured that our customers will accept these credits in lieu of other legal remedies that may be available to them. Our failure to meet our commitments could also result in substantial customer dissatisfaction or loss. Our failure to meet our service level commitments to our customers could lead to future loss of revenues and have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our ability to operate our data centers relies on access to sufficient and reliable electric power.

Since our data centers rely on third parties to provide power sufficient to meet operational needs, our data centers could have a limited or inadequate amount of electrical resources necessary to meet our customer requirements. We and other data center operators attempt to limit exposure to system downtime due to power outages by using backup generators and power supplies. However, these protections may not limit our exposure to power shortages or outages entirely. Any system downtime resulting from insufficient power resources or power outages could cause physical damage to equipment, increase our susceptibility to security breaches, damage our reputation and lead us to lose current and potential customers, which would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Failure to have reliable Internet, telecommunications and fiber optic network connectivity and capacity may adversely affect our results of operations.

Our success depends in part upon the capacity, reliability and performance of our network infrastructure, including our Internet, telecommunications and fiber optic network connectivity providers. We depend on these companies to provide uninterrupted and error-free service through their telecommunications networks. Some of these providers are also our competitors. We exercise little control over these providers, which increases our vulnerability to problems with the services they provide. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience interruptions or delays in network service. Any failure on our part or the part of our third-party suppliers to achieve or maintain high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance could significantly reduce customer demand for our services and have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We also can provide no assurances that our redundancy planning will be effective.

As our customers’ usage of telecommunications capacity increases, we will be required to make additional investments in our capacity to maintain adequate data transmission speeds, the availability of which may be limited or the cost of which may be on terms unacceptable to us. If adequate capacity is not available to us as our customers’ usage increases, our network may be unable to achieve or maintain sufficiently high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance. In addition, our business and results of operations would suffer if our network suppliers increased the prices for their services and we were unable to successfully pass along the increased costs to our customers.

We have overestimated our data center capacity requirements in the past. If we overestimate or underestimate our data center capacity requirements, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

The costs of building out, leasing and maintaining our data centers constitute a significant portion of our capital and operating expenses. To manage our capacity while minimizing unnecessary excess capacity costs, we continuously evaluate our short and long-term data center capacity requirements, and we have overestimated our data center capacity requirements in the past. However, many of the data center sites that we lease are subject to long-term leases. If our capacity needs are reduced, or if we decide to close a data center, we may nonetheless be committed to perform our obligations under the applicable leases including, among other things, paying the base rent for the balance of the lease term. Moreover, as a result of changing technological trends, we have seen customer demand shift towards our offerings provided on the infrastructure of a third-party cloud infrastructure provider, which reduces our data center capacity needs. In addition, the solutions we offer and our customer-based approach may encourage our customers to move to the public cloud, which may reduce our data center capacity needs. If we overestimate our data center capacity requirements and therefore secure excess data center capacity, our operating margins could be materially reduced. If we underestimate our data center capacity requirements, we may not be able to service the expanding needs of our existing customers and may be required to limit new customer acquisition or enter into leases that are not optimal, both of which may materially and adversely impair our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our customer solutions, software or technology could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Undetected real or perceived errors, failures, bugs or defects may be present or occur in the future in our customer solutions, software or technology or the technology or software we license from third parties, including open source software. Despite testing by us, real or perceived errors, failures, bugs or defects may not be found until our customers use our services. Real or perceived errors, failures, bugs or defects in our customer solutions could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our services and harm to our brand, weakening of our competitive position, claims by customers for losses sustained by them or failure to meet the stated service level commitments in our customer agreements. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend significant additional resources in order to help correct the problem. Any real or perceived errors, failures, bugs or defects in our customer solutions could also impair our ability to attract new customers, retain existing customers or expand their use of our services, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on third-party software that may be difficult to replace, or which could cause errors or failures of our service that could lead to lost customers or harm to our reputation.

We rely on software licensed from third parties to offer our services. This software may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this software could result in delays in the provisioning of our services until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained and integrated, which could harm our business, and there is no guarantee that we would be successful in developing, identifying, obtaining or integrating equivalent or similar technology, which could result in the loss or limiting of our services or features available in our services. Any errors or defects in third-party software or inadequate or delayed support by our third-party licensors could result in errors or a failure of our service, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our third-party vendors, including our third-party software licensors, increase their prices and we are unable to pass those increased costs to our customers, it could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations.

If third-party vendors increase their prices and we are unable to successfully pass those costs on to our customers, it could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations. Many of our contracts with our customers give us the flexibility to increase our prices from time to time; however, notwithstanding our contractual right to do so, raising prices may decrease the demand for our services, cause customers to terminate their existing relationships with us or limit our ability to attract new customers. Our attempts to otherwise mitigate cost increases or achieve cost reductions can also cause disruptions and operational impacts in the near- and medium-term, including increased costs and distraction of management attention.

Our services depend in part on intellectual property and proprietary rights and technology licensed from third parties.

Much of our business and many of our services rely on key technologies developed or licensed by third parties. For example, we sell or otherwise provide licenses to use third-party software in connection with the sale of some of our managed service partner offerings. These third-party software components may become obsolete, defective or incompatible with future versions of our services, or relationships with the third-party licensors may deteriorate, or our agreements with the third-party licensors may expire or be terminated. Additionally, some of these licenses may not be available to us in the future on terms that are acceptable or that allow our service offerings to remain competitive. Our inability to obtain licenses or rights on favorable terms could have a material and adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Furthermore, incorporating intellectual property or proprietary rights licensed from third parties on a non-exclusive basis in our services could limit our ability to protect the intellectual property and proprietary rights in our services and our ability to restrict third parties from developing, selling or otherwise providing similar or competitive technology using the same third-party intellectual property or proprietary rights.

Sales to enterprise customers involve risks that may not be present in or that are present to a greater extent than sales to smaller entities.

We continue to focus a significant portion of our sales efforts on enterprise customers. Sales to such customers generally have longer sales cycles, more complex customer requirements, substantial upfront sales costs and contract terms that are less favorable to us, including as it relates to pricing and limitations on liability. A number of factors influence the length and variability of our sales cycle, including the need to educate potential customers about the uses and benefits of our solutions, the discretionary nature of purchasing and budget cycles and the competitive nature of evaluation and purchasing approval processes. As a result, the length of our sales cycle, from identification of the opportunity to deal closure, may vary significantly from customer to customer, with sales to large enterprises typically taking longer to complete.

Some of our professional services engagements with our clients are based on estimated pricing terms. If our estimates are incorrect, these terms could become unprofitable.

Some of our customer contracts for professional services are fixed-price contracts to which we commit before we provide services to these clients. In pricing such fixed-price client contracts, we are required to make estimates and assumptions at the time we enter into these contracts that could differ from actual results. As a result, the profit that is anticipated at a contract’s inception is not guaranteed. Our estimates reflect our best judgments about the nature of the engagement and our expected costs in providing the contracted services. However, any increased or unexpected costs or any unanticipated delays in connection with our performance of these engagements, including delays caused by our third-party providers or by factors outside our control, could make these contracts less profitable or unprofitable and could have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

If we fail to maintain, enhance and protect our brand, our ability to expand our customer base will be impaired and our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.

We believe that maintaining, enhancing and protecting our brand is important to support the marketing and sale of our existing and future services to new customers and expand sales of our services to existing customers. We also believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successfully maintaining, enhancing and protecting our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, our ability to provide reliable services that continue to meet the needs of our customers at competitive prices, our ability to maintain our customers’ trust, our ability to successfully differentiate our services and platform capabilities from competitive services and our ability to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce trademark and other intellectual property protection for our brand. Our brand promotion activities may not generate customer awareness or yield increased revenue, and even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses incurred in building and maintaining our brand. If we fail to successfully promote, maintain and protect our brand, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.

Our ability to operate and expand our business is susceptible to risks associated with international sales and operations.

We have operations across the globe. We anticipate that a significant portion of our revenue will continue to be derived from sources outside of the U.S. A key element of our strategy is to further expand our customer base internationally and successfully operate data centers in foreign markets. We have limited experience operating in foreign jurisdictions other than the U.K., Australia and Hong Kong and expect to continue to grow our international operations. Managing a global organization is difficult, time consuming and expensive. If we are unable to manage the risks of our global operations and geographic expansion strategy, our business, results of operations and ability to grow could be materially and adversely affected. In addition, conducting international operations subjects us to new risks that we have not generally faced. These risks include:

Operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. The investment and additional resources required to establish operations and manage growth in other countries may not produce desired levels of revenue or profitability.

We have operations in the U.K. and the E.U. and, as a result, we face risks associated with the uncertainty and disruptions as a consequence of Brexit that naturally arise from the Trade Agreement. These include increased cross-border checks and required customs documentation with respect to the movement of goods between the U.K and the E.U., disruption to the labor supply between the U.K. and the E.U., the potential divergence of the regulatory regimes applicable to our operations between the U.K and the E.U., and importantly, the absence of adequate trade provisions dealing with the services sector (especially for financial services) in the Trade Agreement. Consequently, the continuing uncertainty concerning the U.K.’s legal, political and economic relationship with the E.U. could adversely affect European or worldwide political, regulatory, economic or market conditions and could contribute to instability in global political institutions, regulatory agencies and financial markets. These developments, or the perception that any of them could occur, have had and may continue to have a significant adverse effect on global economic conditions and the stability of global financial markets and could significantly reduce global market liquidity and limit the ability of key market participants to operate in certain financial markets. In particular, it could also lead to a period of considerable uncertainty in relation to the U.K. financial and banking markets, as well as on the regulatory process in Europe. Asset valuations, currency exchange rates and credit ratings may also be subject to increased market volatility.

The long-term effects of Brexit will depend on any further agreements (or lack thereof) between the U.K. and the E.U. and, in particular, any arrangements for the U.K. to retain access to E.U. markets in the service sector. We may also face new regulatory costs and challenges as a result of Brexit that could have an adverse effect on our operations. For example, the U.K. has lost the benefits of global trade agreements negotiated by the E.U. on behalf of its members, and therefore has had and will have to negotiate separate trade agreements with other nations (e.g. the U.S.) which is likely to result in greater complexity and uncertainty that could make our doing business globally more difficult. There may continue to be economic uncertainty surrounding the consequences of Brexit that adversely impact customer confidence resulting in customers reducing their spending budgets on our solutions, which could harm our business.

The ongoing instability and uncertainty in the aftermath of the Trade Agreement could require us to restructure our business operations in the U.K. and the E.U. and could have an adverse impact on our business and employees in the U.K. and E.U.

Failure to develop and maintain adequate internal systems could cause us to be unable to properly provide service to our customers, causing us to lose customers, suffer harm to our reputation and incur additional costs.

Some of our enterprise systems have been designed to support individual service offerings, resulting in a lack of standardization among various internal systems, tools and processes across products, platforms, services, functions and geographies, making it difficult to serve customers who use multiple service offerings. This lack of standardization causes us to implement manual processes to overcome the fragmentation, which can result in increased expense and manual errors.

We continually seek to drive efficiencies in our infrastructure and business processes. Our inability to manage competing priorities, execute multiple concurrent projects, plan and manage resources effectively and meet deadlines and budgets could result in us not being able to implement the systems needed to speed up implementation of customer solutions and deliver our services in a compelling manner to our customers. If we are unable to drive efficiencies in our infrastructure and business processes, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We may not be able to renew the leases on our existing facilities on terms acceptable to us, if at all, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on a number of third-party providers for data center space, equipment, maintenance and other services, and the loss of, or problems with, one or more of these providers may impede our growth or cause us to lose customers.

We rely on third-party providers to supply data center space, equipment and maintenance. For example, we lease data center space from third-party landlords, purchase equipment from equipment providers and source equipment maintenance through third parties. While we have entered into various agreements for the lease of data center space, equipment, maintenance and other services, the third-party could fail to live up to the contractual obligations under those agreements. For example, a data center landlord may fail to adequately maintain its facilities or provide an appropriate data center infrastructure for which it is responsible. If that were to happen, we would not likely be able to deliver the services to our customers that we have agreed to provide according to our standards or at all. Additionally, if the third parties that we rely on fail to deliver on their obligations, our customers may lose confidence in our company, which would make it likely that we would not be able to retain those customers, and could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to various laws, directives, regulations, contractual obligations and policies regarding the protection of confidentiality and appropriate use of personal information.

We are subject to a variety of federal, state, local and international laws, directives and regulations, as well as contractual obligations and policies, relating to the collection, use, retention, security, disclosure, transfer and other processing of information, including sensitive, proprietary, healthcare, financial and personal information. The regulatory framework for privacy and security issues worldwide is complex and rapidly evolving and as a result, implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Any failure by us, our suppliers or other parties with whom we do business to comply with our contractual commitments, policies or with federal, state, local or international regulations could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities or others. In many jurisdictions, enforcement actions and consequences for noncompliance are rising. In the U.S., these include enforcement actions in response to rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of federal agencies, state attorneys general and legislatures and consumer protection agencies. In addition, security advocates and industry groups have regularly proposed, and may propose in the future, self-regulatory standards with which we must legally comply or that contractually apply to us. If we fail to follow these security standards even if no personal information is compromised, we may incur significant fines or experience a significant increase in costs.

Internationally, virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established its own data security and privacy legal framework with which we or our customers must comply, including but not limited to the U.K. and the E.U. The E.U. has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation ("E.U. GDPR"), which went into effect in May 2018, and together with national legislation, regulations and guidelines of the E.U. member states, contains numerous requirements and changes from previously existing E.U. law, including the increased jurisdictional reach of the European Commission, more robust obligations on data processors and additional requirements for data protection compliance programs by companies. E.U. member states are tasked under the E.U. GDPR to enact, and have enacted, certain legislation that adds to and/or further interprets the E.U. GDPR requirements and potentially extends our obligations and potential liability for failing to meet such obligations. Among other requirements, the E.U. GDPR regulates transfers of personal data subject to the E.U. GDPR to the U.S. as well as other third countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection to such personal data. While we have taken steps to mitigate the impact on us with respect to transfers of data, such as implementing standard contractual clauses, the efficacy and longevity of these transfer mechanisms remains uncertain. Following Brexit, the U.K. enacted a Data Protection Act substantially implementing the GDPR and amended to align with the E.U. GDPR. It is unclear how U.K.

data protection laws or regulations will develop in the medium to longer term. We must comply with the E.U. GDPR and the U.K. GDPR, with each regime having the ability to fine up to the greater of €20 million (in the case of the E.U. GDPR) or £17 million (in the case of the U.K. GDPR) and 4% of total annual revenue. Such penalties are in addition to any civil litigation claims by customers and data subjects. The GDPR requirements apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between us and our subsidiaries, including employee information.

Non-compliance with relevant data privacy laws, directives and regulations, such as the E.U. or U.K. GDPR, could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities, customers, data subjects or others. We may also experience difficulty retaining or obtaining new European or multi-national customers due to the legal requirements, compliance cost, potential risk exposure and uncertainty for these entities, and we may experience significantly increased liability with respect to these customers pursuant to the terms set forth in our engagements with them.

Because the interpretation and application of many privacy and data protection laws along with contractually imposed industry standards are uncertain, it is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or the features of our services and platform capabilities. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits, regulatory investigations, imprisonment of company officials and public censure, other claims and penalties, significant costs for remediation and damage to our reputation, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our services and platform capabilities, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business.

In addition, our board of directors has adopted a code of conduct that applies to all of our directors, officers and employees which, among other things, sets forth our policies regarding the protection of customer, third party, proprietary and confidential information. We also make public statements about our use and disclosure of personal information through information provided on our website, press statements and our privacy policies, and we have a Chief Privacy Officer that oversees our compliance with these policies. Although we endeavor to comply with our public statements and documentation, including our code of conduct and privacy policies, we may at times fail to do so or be alleged to have failed to do so. The publication of our privacy policies and other statements that provide promises and assurances about data privacy and security can subject us to potential government or legal action if they are found to be deceptive, unfair or misrepresentative of our actual practices.

Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy and data security laws, regulations, contractual obligations and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales and have a material and adverse effect on our business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, contractual obligations and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our services. Privacy and data security concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our services, particularly in certain industries and foreign countries. If we are not able to adjust to changing laws, regulations and standards related to the Internet, our business may be harmed.

Customers could potentially expose us to lawsuits for their lost profits or damages, which could impair our results of operations.

Because our services are critical to many of our customers’ businesses, any significant disruption in our services could result in lost profits or other indirect or consequential damages to our customers. Although we generally require our customers to sign agreements that contain provisions attempting to limit our liability for service outages, we cannot be assured that a court would enforce any contractual limitations on our liability in the event that one of our customers brings a lawsuit against us as the result of a service interruption or other Internet site or application problems that they may ascribe to us. The outcome of any such lawsuit would depend on the specific facts of the case and any legal and policy considerations that we may not be able to mitigate. In such cases, we could be liable for substantial damage awards that may exceed our liability insurance coverage by unknown but significant amounts, which could materially and adversely impair our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our clients include national, provincial, state and local governmental entities.

Our government work carries various risks inherent in the government contracting process. These risks include, but are not limited to, the following:

The occurrences or conditions described above could affect not only our business with the government entities involved, but also our business with other entities of the same or other governmental bodies or with certain commercial clients and could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations.

In addition, the success of our government solutions business is highly dependent on our FISMA and FedRAMP certifications which evidence our ability to meet certain federal government security compliance requirements. Failure to maintain the FedRAMP certification would result in a breach in many of our government contracts, which in turn, could subject us to liability and result in reputational harm and customer and employee attrition. Further, government contracts are increasingly requiring that FedRAMP-authorized service offerings be hosted on public cloud infrastructure. In the event that we are unable to expand the scope of our FedRAMP-authorized service offerings accordingly, it may impair our ability to successfully bid on government contracts.

Our operations and operations of our third-party channel partners in countries outside of the U.S. are subject to a number of anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal or civil liability and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We operate internationally and must comply with complex foreign and U.S. laws including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), the U.K. Bribery Act of 2010 and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which prohibit engaging in certain activities to obtain or retain business or to influence a person working in an official capacity. We must also comply with economic and trade sanctions administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) and the U.S. Commerce Department based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign states, organizations and individuals, as well as other anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws in the countries in which we conduct activities. We do business and may in the future do additional business in countries and regions in which we may face, directly or indirectly, corrupt demands by officials or by private entities in which corrupt offers are expected. Furthermore, many of our operations require us to use third parties to conduct business or to interact with people who are deemed to be governmental officials under the FCPA. Thus, we face the risk of unauthorized payments or offers of payments or other things of value by our employees, contractors or agents. While it is our policy to implement compliance procedures to prohibit these practices, our due diligence policy and the procedures we undertake may not sufficiently vet our third-party channel partners for these risks prior to entering into a contractual relationship with them. As a result, despite our policies and any safeguards and any future improvements made to them, our employees, contractors, third-party channel partners and agents may engage in conduct for which we might be held responsible, regardless of whether such conduct occurs within or outside the U.S. We may also be held responsible for any violations by an acquired company that occurs prior to an acquisition, or subsequent to the acquisition but before we are able to institute our compliance procedures. A violation of any of these laws, even if prohibited by our policies, may result in severe criminal and/or civil sanctions and other penalties and could have a material and adverse effect on our business.

Compliance with U.S. regulations on trade sanctions and embargoes administered by OFAC and the U.S. Commerce Department also poses a risk to us. We cannot provide services to certain countries subject to U.S. trade sanctions. Furthermore, the laws and regulations concerning import activity, export recordkeeping and reporting, export control and economic sanctions are complex and constantly changing. Any failure to comply with applicable legal and regulatory trading obligations could result in criminal and civil penalties and sanctions, such as fines, imprisonment, debarment from governmental contracts, seizure of shipments and loss of import and export privileges. For example, in 2017, prior to our acquisition of Datapipe, one of Datapipe’s European subsidiaries provided network interconnectivity and distributed denial of attack protection service to an Iranian entity subject to OFAC sanctions. Datapipe self-reported the instance to OFAC and we have taken remedial measures to safeguard against re-occurrence. If we provide services to sanctioned targets in the future in violation of applicable export laws or economic sanctions, we could be subject to government investigations, penalties and reputational harm.

Detecting, investigating and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources and attention from senior management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery or anti-money laundering laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a materially significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense costs and other professional fees.

Certain of our international operations are conducted in countries or regions experiencing corruption or instability, which subjects us to heightened legal and economic risks.

We do business and may in the future do additional business in certain countries or regions in which corruption is a serious problem. Moreover, to effectively compete in certain non-U.S. jurisdictions, it is frequently necessary or required to establish joint ventures, strategic alliances or marketing arrangements with local operators, partners or agents. In certain instances, these local operators, partners or agents may have interests that are not always aligned with ours. Reliance on local operators, partners or agents could expose us to the risk of being unable to control the scope or quality of our overseas services or being held liable under any anti-corruption laws for actions taken by our strategic or local partners or agents even though these partners or agents may not themselves be subject to such anti-corruption laws. Any determination that we have violated anti-corruption laws could have a material and adverse effect on our business, results of operations, reputation or prospects.

We may be liable for the material that content providers distribute over our network, and we may have to terminate customers that provide content that is determined to be illegal, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

The laws relating to the liability of private network operators for information carried on, stored on, or disseminated through their networks are unsettled or evolving in many jurisdictions. We have been and expect to continue to be subject to legal claims relating to the content disseminated on our network, including claims under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, other similar legislation, regulation and common law. In addition, there are other potential customer activities, such as online gambling and pornography, where we, in our role as a hosting provider, may be held liable as an aider or abettor of our customers. If we need to take costly measures to reduce our exposure to these risks, terminate customer relationships and the associated revenue or defend ourselves against such claims, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be negatively affected.

Government regulation is continuously evolving and, depending on its evolution, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to varying degrees of regulation in each of the jurisdictions in which we provide services. Local laws and regulations, and their interpretation and enforcement, differ significantly among those jurisdictions. These regulations and laws may cover taxation, privacy, data protection, pricing, content, intellectual property and proprietary rights, distribution, mobile communications, electronic device certification, electronic waste, electronic contracts and other communications, consumer protection, web services, the provision of online payment services, unencumbered Internet access to our services, the design and operation of websites and the characteristics and quality of services. These laws can be costly to comply with, can be a significant diversion to management’s time and effort and can subject us to claims or other remedies, as well as negative publicity. Many of these laws were adopted prior to the advent of the Internet and related technologies and, as a result, do not contemplate or address the unique issues that the Internet and related technologies currently produce. Some of the laws that do reference the Internet and related technologies have been and continue to be interpreted by the courts, but their applicability and scope remain largely uncertain.

Any failure by us to identify, manage, complete and integrate acquisitions and other significant transactions, including dispositions, successfully could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As part of our strategy, we expect to continue to acquire companies or businesses, enter into strategic alliances and joint ventures and make investments to further our business, both domestically and globally (“Strategic Transactions”). Risks associated with these Strategic Transactions include the following, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations:

In addition, we may divest assets or businesses that are no longer a part of our strategy. These divestitures similarly require significant investment of time and resources, may disrupt our business and distract management from other responsibilities and may result in losses on disposition or continued financial involvement in the divested business, including through indemnification or other financial arrangements, for a period following the transaction, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our results of operations could be materially and adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

Although we report our results of operations in U.S. dollars, a significant portion of our revenue and expenses are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Further, the majority of our customers are invoiced, and the majority of our expenses are paid, by us or our subsidiaries in the functional currency of our company or our subsidiaries, respectively. However, some of our customers are currently invoiced in currencies other than the applicable functional currency. As a result, we may incur foreign currency losses based on changes in exchange rates between the date of the invoice and the date of collection. In addition, large changes in foreign exchange rates relative to our functional currencies could increase the costs of our services to non-U.S. customers relative to local competitors, thereby causing us to lose existing or potential customers to these local competitors. Thus, our results of operations are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Further, as we grow our international operations, our exposure to foreign currency risk could become more significant. We have entered into, and in the future we may enter into, foreign currency hedging contracts to reduce foreign currency volatility. However, we currently do not maintain foreign currency hedging contracts with respect to all our foreign currencies, and any contracts we have or may enter into may not fully mitigate our foreign currency risk, may prove disadvantageous or may create additional risks.

We are exposed to commodity and market price risks that affect our results of operations.

Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change may result in environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties, resulting in increased electricity prices.

The effects of human activity on the global climate change have attracted considerable public and scientific attention, as well as the attention of the U.S. government. Efforts are being made to reduce greenhouse emissions, particularly those from coal combustion by power plants, some of which we rely upon for power. The added cost of any environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties levied on these power plants could be passed on to us, increasing the cost to run our data centers. Additionally, environmental taxes, charges, assessments or penalties could be levied directly on us in proportion to our carbon footprint. Any enactment of laws or passage of regulations regarding greenhouse gas emissions by the U.S., or any domestic or foreign jurisdiction we perform business in, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We utilize open source software in providing a substantial portion of our services. Our use of open source software, and our contributions to open source projects, could impose limitations on our ability to provide our services, expose us to litigation, cause us to impair our assets and allow third parties to access and use software and technology that we use in our business, all of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We utilize open source software, including Linux-based software, in providing a substantial portion of our services and we expect to continue to incorporate open source software in a substantial portion of our services in the future. The terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to offer our services. Moreover, we cannot ensure that we have not incorporated additional open source software in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the applicable license. If we fail to comply with these licenses, or if we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we may be subject to certain requirements, including requirements that we offer our solutions that incorporate the open source software for no cost, that we make available the source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon, incorporating or using the open source software, and that we license such modifications or derivative works under the terms of applicable open source licenses.

Additionally, the use and distribution of open source software can lead to greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software, as some open source projects have known vulnerabilities and open source software does not come with warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. From time to time parties have asserted claims against companies that distribute or use open source software in their products and services, asserting that open source software infringes their intellectual property rights. We have been subject to suits, and could be subject to suits in the future, by parties claiming infringement of intellectual property rights with respect to what we believe to be open source software. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, and in such an event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties to continue using such software or offering certain of our services. If we are unable to obtain a required license, we may have to discontinue the use of such software or the sale of our affected services, which could cause us to breach customer agreements and incur liability to customers. The cost of obtaining such licenses, or the consequences of failing to obtain them, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We also participate in open source projects, including contributing portions of our proprietary software code to such open source projects. Our participation in open source projects, and our use of open source solutions in a substantial portion of our services, could result in an impairment of design and development assets. In addition, our activities with these open source projects could subject us to additional risks of litigation, including indirect infringement claims based on third-party contributors because of our participation in these projects. Furthermore, our participation in open source projects may allow third parties, including our competitors, to have access to software that we use in our business, which could limit our ability to restrict third parties from developing, selling or otherwise providing similar or competitive technology or services, and which may enable our competitors to provide similar services with lower development effort and time, which could ultimately result in a loss of sales for us. While we may be able to claim protection of our intellectual property under other rights, such as trade secrets or contractual rights, our participation in open source projects limits our ability to assert certain of our patent rights against third parties (even if we were to conclude that their use infringes our patents with competing offerings), unless such third parties assert patent rights against us. This limitation on our ability to assert our patent rights against others could harm our business and ability to compete.

Our business is dependent on our ability to continue to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce the intellectual property and proprietary rights on which our business relies. If we are not successful in obtaining, maintaining, protecting and enforcing our intellectual property and proprietary rights, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

In addition to our use of open source software, we rely on patent, copyright, trademark, service mark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protection. For example, we do not have any patent rights related to our proprietary tools, technology, processes and systems, including Rackspace Fabric, and rely on confidentiality agreements to protect such proprietary rights. We cannot assure you that any future patent, copyright, trademark or service mark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered or unregistered copyrights, trademarks or service marks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Furthermore, the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property and proprietary rights are uncertain.

We regard our trademarks, trade names and service marks as having significant value, and our brand is an important factor in the marketing of our services. We intend to rely on both registration and common law protection for our trademarks. However, we may be unable to prevent competitors from acquiring trademarks or service marks and other intellectual property and proprietary rights that are similar to, infringe upon, misappropriate, violate or diminish the value of our trademarks and service marks and our other intellectual property and proprietary rights. The value of our intellectual property and proprietary rights could diminish if others assert rights in or ownership of our intellectual property or proprietary rights, or in trademarks that are similar to our trademarks.

Third parties may independently develop technologies that are substantially equivalent, superior to, or otherwise competitive to the technologies we employ in our services or that infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property and proprietary rights. If we fail to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights adequately, our competitors may gain access to our proprietary technology and develop and commercialize substantially identical services or technologies, and the steps we have taken may not prevent unauthorized use, access, distribution, misappropriation, reverse engineering or disclosure of our intellectual property and proprietary information, including our know-how and trade secrets. Enforcement of our intellectual property and proprietary rights also depends on successful legal actions against infringers and parties who misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property and proprietary rights, including our proprietary information and trade secrets, but these actions may not be successful, even when our rights have been infringed, misappropriated or otherwise violated. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S., and patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our services are available.

Despite the measures taken by us, it may be possible for a third party to copy or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property and proprietary rights, including our technology and information, without authorization. Policing unauthorized use of our proprietary technologies and other intellectual property and our services is difficult, time-consuming and costly, and litigation could become necessary in the future to protect or enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Any such litigation could be time consuming and expensive to prosecute or resolve, result in substantial diversion of management attention and resources and harm our business and results of operations. Furthermore, any such litigation may ultimately be unsuccessful and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Additionally, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property and proprietary rights, and if such defenses, counterclaims or countersuits are successful, we could lose valuable intellectual property and proprietary rights.

Third-party claims of intellectual property or proprietary right infringement, misappropriation or other violation may be costly to defend and may limit or disrupt our ability to sell our services.

Third-party claims of intellectual property or proprietary right infringement, misappropriation or other violation are commonplace in technology-related industries. Companies in the technology industry, holding companies, non-practicing entities and other adverse intellectual property owners who may or may not have relevant service revenue, but are seeking to profit from royalties in connection with grants of licenses, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks and trade secrets and frequently make claims of allegations of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property and proprietary rights and may pursue litigation against us. These or other parties have claimed in the past, and could claim in the future, that we have misappropriated, violated, infringed or misused intellectual property proprietary rights. We could incur substantial costs in defending any such litigation, and any such litigation, regardless of merit or outcome, could be time consuming and expensive to settle or litigate and could divert the attention of our technical and management personnel and could harm our business, results of operations and reputation. An adverse determination in any such litigation could prevent us from offering our services to our customers and may require that we procure or develop substitute services that do not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate, which could be costly, time-consuming or impossible, or require us to obtain a costly and/or unfavorable license. Certain of our agreements with our customers and other third parties include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify or otherwise be liable to them for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of intellectual property rights. For any intellectual property or proprietary right claim against us or our customers or such other third parties, we may also have to pay damages (including treble damages and attorneys’ fees if we are found to have willfully infringed a party’s rights), indemnify our customers or such other third parties against damages or stop using technology or intellectual property found to be in violation of a third party’s rights, which could harm our business. We may be unable to replace or obtain a license for those technologies with technologies that have the same features or functionality and that are of equal quality and performance standards on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Licensing replacement technologies and intellectual property may significantly increase our operating expenses or may require us to restrict our business activities in one or more respects. We may also be required to develop alternative technology and intellectual property that is non-infringing, misappropriating or violating, which could require significant effort, time and expense and ultimately may not be an alternative that functions as well as the original or is accepted in the marketplace.

We may have additional tax liabilities.

We are subject to a variety of taxes and tax collection obligations in the U.S. (federal and state) and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes. We may recognize additional tax expense and be subject to additional tax liabilities, including other liabilities for tax collection obligations due to changes in laws, regulations, administrative practices, principles and interpretations related to tax, including changes to the global tax framework, competition and other laws and accounting rules in various jurisdictions. Such changes could come about as a result of economic, political and other conditions, or certain jurisdictions aggressively interpreting their laws in an effort to raise additional tax revenue. An increasing number of jurisdictions are considering or have unilaterally adopted laws or country-by-country reporting requirements that could adversely affect our effective tax rates or result in other costs to us which could adversely affect our operating results.

We are also currently subject to tax audits in various jurisdictions, and these jurisdictions may assess additional tax liabilities against us. Developments in an audit, investigation or other tax controversy could have a material and adverse effect on our operating results or cash flows in the period or periods for which that development occurs, as well as for prior and subsequent periods. We regularly assess the likelihood of an adverse outcome resulting from these proceedings to determine the adequacy of our tax accruals. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final outcome of audits, investigations and any other tax controversies could be materially different from our historical tax accruals.

Changes in U.S. trade policy, including the imposition of tariffs and the resulting consequences, may have a material and adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The U.S. government has adopted a new approach to trade policy and in some cases to renegotiate, or potentially terminate, certain existing bilateral or multi-lateral trade agreements. It has also imposed tariffs on certain foreign goods, including information and communication technology products. These measures may materially increase costs for goods imported into the U.S. This in turn could mean that a larger portion of our customer’s IT spending will be made on hardware costs and less will be available to spend on our services, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Indebtedness

Our substantial indebtedness could materially and adversely affect our ability to raise additional capital to fund our operations, limit our ability to react to changes in the economy or our industry and prevent us from making debt service payments.

Our substantial indebtedness could have important consequences. For example, it could:

In addition, the First Lien Credit Agreement, the 5.375% Notes Indenture and the 3.50% Notes Indenture contain restrictive covenants that will limit our ability to engage in activities that may be in our long-term best interest. Our failure to comply with those covenants could result in an event of default which, if not cured or waived, could result in the acceleration of substantially all of our indebtedness.

Despite our substantial indebtedness, we may still be able to incur significantly more debt, including secured debt, which could intensify the risks associated with our indebtedness.

We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service all of our indebtedness and to fund our working capital and capital expenditures and may be forced to take other actions to satisfy our obligations under our indebtedness that may not be successful.

Our ability to satisfy our debt obligations will depend upon, among other things:

We cannot assure you that our business will generate cash flow from operations, or that we will be able to draw under our Revolving Credit Facility or otherwise, in an amount sufficient to fund our liquidity needs. If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to service our indebtedness and other liquidity needs, we may be forced to reduce or delay capital expenditures, sell assets, seek additional capital or restructure or refinance our indebtedness. These alternative measures may not be successful and may not permit us to meet our scheduled debt service obligations. Our ability to restructure or refinance our debt will depend on the condition of the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. Any refinancing of our debt could be at higher interest rates and may require us to comply with more onerous covenants, which could further restrict our business operations. We cannot assure you that we will be able to restructure or refinance any of our debt on commercially reasonable terms or at all. In addition, the terms of existing or future debt agreements, including the First Lien Credit Agreement and the 5.375% Notes Indenture and the 3.50% Notes Indenture, may restrict us from adopting some of

these alternatives. In the absence of such operating results and resources, we could face substantial liquidity problems and might be required to dispose of material assets or operations to meet our debt service and other obligations. We may not be able to consummate those dispositions for fair market value or at all. Furthermore, any proceeds that we could realize from any such dispositions may not be adequate to meet our debt service obligations when due. Our equityholders, including Apollo and its affiliates, have no continuing obligation to provide us with debt or equity financing. Our inability to generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy our debt obligations, or to refinance our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all, would result in a material and adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

If we cannot make scheduled payments on our indebtedness, we will be in default, and holders of the 5.375% Senior Notes and the 3.50% Senior Secured Notes and the lenders under the Senior Facilities could declare all outstanding principal and interest to be due and payable, the lenders under the Senior Facilities could terminate their commitments to loan money, our secured lenders (including the lenders under the Senior Facilities) and holders of the 3.50% Senior Secured Notes could foreclose against the assets securing their indebtedness and we could be forced into bankruptcy or liquidation.

Our debt agreements contain restrictions that limit our flexibility in operating our business.

The First Lien Credit Agreement and the Indentures contain, and any other existing or future indebtedness of ours would likely contain, a number of covenants that impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us, including restrictions on our subsidiaries’ ability to, among other things:

In addition, the Revolving Credit Facility requires us to comply with a net first lien leverage ratio under certain circumstances.

As a result of these covenants, we are limited in the manner in which we conduct our business, and we may be unable to engage in favorable business activities or finance future operations or capital needs. A failure to comply with the covenants in the First Lien Credit Agreement, the 5.375% Notes Indenture, the 3.50% Notes Indenture or any of our other existing or future indebtedness could result in an event of default under the applicable agreements governing such indebtedness, which, if not cured or waived, could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In the event of any such event of default, the lenders under the Senior Facilities, as applicable:

any of which could result in an event of default under the 5.375% Notes Indenture and the 3.50% Notes Indenture.

Such actions by the lenders could cause cross defaults under our other indebtedness. If we were unable to repay those amounts, the lenders under the Senior Facilities and any of our other existing or future secured indebtedness could proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure the Senior Facilities or such other indebtedness. We have pledged substantially all of our assets as collateral under the Senior Facilities.

If any of our outstanding indebtedness under the Senior Facilities or our other indebtedness, including the 5.375% Senior Notes and the 3.50% Senior Secured Notes, were to be accelerated, there can be no assurance that our assets would be sufficient to repay such indebtedness in full.

Our variable rate indebtedness subjects us to interest rate risk, which could cause our debt service obligations to increase significantly.

Borrowings under the Senior Facilities are at variable rates of interest and expose us to interest rate risk. As of December 31, 2021, assuming the Revolving Credit Facility was fully drawn, each 0.125% change in assumed blended interest rates would result in a $3 million change in annual interest expense on indebtedness under the Senior Facilities. We have entered into, and in the future we may enter into, interest rate swaps that involve the exchange of floating for fixed rate interest payments to reduce interest rate volatility. However, we currently do not maintain interest rate swaps with respect to all our variable rate indebtedness, and any swaps we have or may enter into may not fully mitigate our interest rate risk, may prove disadvantageous or may create additional risks.

On March 5, 2021, the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates LIBOR, announced that it will not compel panel banks to contribute to the overnight 1, 3, 6 and 12 months U.S. dollar LIBOR tenors after June 30, 2023 and all other tenors after December 31, 2021. U.S. dollar LIBOR may be replaced by the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) or other benchmark rates over the next several years. It is not possible to predict the effect of these changes, other reforms or the establishment of alternative reference rates in the U.K., the U.S. or elsewhere.

Borrowings under our Senior Facilities use LIBOR as a benchmark for establishing the applicable interest rate, but the First Lien Credit Agreement includes provisions relating to the future discontinuance of LIBOR and sets forth mechanics for establishing the replacement of LIBOR with an alternative benchmark rate.

The consequences of the phase out of LIBOR cannot be entirely predicted at this time. Any alternative rate for calculating interest with respect to our outstanding indebtedness may not be as favorable or perform in the same manner as LIBOR and could lead to an increase in our interest expense or could impact our ability to refinance some or all of our existing indebtedness. In addition, the transition process may involve, among other things, increased volatility or illiquidity in financial markets, which could also have an adverse effect on us whether or not any replacement rate applicable to our borrowings is affected. Any such effects of the transition away from LIBOR, as well as other unforeseen impacts, may result in increased interest expense and other expenses, difficulties, complications or delays in connection with future financing efforts or otherwise have an adverse impact on our financial condition.

Any downgrade in our credit ratings could limit our ability to obtain future financing, increase our borrowing costs and adversely affect the market price of our existing debt securities or otherwise impair our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Nationally recognized credit rating organizations have issued credit ratings relating to our long-term debt. Our outstanding debt under the Senior Facilities, the 5.375% Senior Notes and the 3.50% Senior Secured Notes currently has non-investment grade ratings. Certain of these organizations have downgraded our credit ratings in the past. There can be no assurance that any rating assigned to any of our debt securities or loans will remain in effect for any given period or that any such ratings will not be lowered, suspended or withdrawn entirely by a rating agency if, in that rating agency’s judgment, circumstances so warrant.

Any additional actual or anticipated changes or downgrades in our credit ratings, including any announcement that our ratings are under review for a downgrade, could:

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

Our stock price may fluctuate significantly.

The market price of our common stock could vary significantly as a result of a number of factors, some of which are beyond our control. The following factors could affect our stock price:

Future sales of our common stock in the public market, or the perception in the public market that such sales may occur, could reduce our stock price.

If we do not maintain effective internal controls, our financial statements may be inaccurate and the value of your investment in our common stock could decrease.

We expect to continue incurring significant expenses and devote substantial management effort toward ensuring compliance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, including with respect to compliance with the requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. If we fail to achieve and maintain an effective internal control environment, we could suffer material misstatements in our consolidated financial statements and fail in meeting our reporting obligations, which would likely cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information. Additionally, ineffective internal control over financial reporting could expose us to increased risk of fraud or misuse of corporate assets and subject us to potential delisting from the Nasdaq, regulatory investigations, civil or criminal sanctions and litigation, any of which would have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and the market price of our common stock.

We continue to be controlled by Apollo, and Apollo’s interests may conflict with our interests and the interests of other stockholders.

We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq’s rules and, as a result, qualify for and intend to rely on exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements.

We are a holding company and rely on dividends, distributions and other payments, advances and transfers of funds from our subsidiaries to meet our obligations.

We are a holding company that does not conduct any business operations of our own. As a result, we are largely dependent upon cash dividends and distributions and other transfers, including for payments in respect of our indebtedness, from our subsidiaries to meet our obligations. The agreements governing the indebtedness of our subsidiaries impose restrictions on our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or other distributions to us. See Item 7 of Part II, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - "Liquidity and Capital Resources." Each of our subsidiaries is a distinct legal entity, and under certain circumstances legal and contractual restrictions may limit our ability to obtain cash from them and we may be limited in our ability to cause any future joint ventures to distribute their earnings to us. The deterioration of the earnings from, or other available assets of, our subsidiaries for any reason could also limit or impair their ability to pay dividends or other distributions to us.

We do not anticipate paying dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future.

We do not anticipate paying any dividends in the foreseeable future on our common stock. We intend to retain all future earnings for the operation and expansion of our business and the repayment of outstanding debt. Our Senior Facilities and the Indentures contain, and any future indebtedness likely will contain, restrictive covenants that impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us, including restrictions on our ability to pay dividends and make other restricted payments.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business or publish negative reports, our stock price could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline. Moreover, if one or more of the analysts who cover our company downgrades our common stock, publishes unfavorable research about our business or if our operating results do not meet their expectations, our stock price could decline.

ITEM 1B – UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2 – PROPERTIES

Office Space

We lease our corporate headquarters facility in Windcrest, Texas, which is in the San Antonio, Texas area and consists of a 1.2 million square foot facility located on 67 acres of land. We are currently using approximately 0.7 million square feet of office space. In addition to our corporate headquarters, we lease office locations throughout the U.S., Europe, the Asia Pacific Region, Mexico and other locations throughout the world. To retain operational flexibility, we are increasingly utilizing shorter-term shared office facilities rather than entering into traditional longer-term office leases.

Data Centers

We believe that our existing office space and data center facilities are adequate for our current needs and that suitable additional or alternative space will be available in the future to meet our anticipated needs.

ITEM 3 – LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We have contingencies resulting from various litigation, claims and commitments. We record accruals for loss contingencies when losses are considered probable and can be reasonably estimated. The amount that will ultimately be paid related to these matters may differ from the recorded accruals, and the timing of such payments is uncertain.

From time to time we may be subject to various legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. In addition, from time to time, third parties may bring intellectual property claims against us asserting that certain of our offerings, services and technologies infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property or proprietary rights of others.

We are not party to any litigation, the outcome of which, if determined adversely to us, would individually or in the aggregate be reasonably expected to have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial position or results of operations.

ITEM 4 – MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

PART II

ITEM 5 – MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Market Information for Common Stock

Our common stock has been listed on the Nasdaq, under the symbol "RXT" since August 5, 2020. Prior to that date, there was no public market for our common stock.

Holders of Record

Dividend Policy

We have not to date paid any cash dividends on our common stock and we currently do not intend to pay cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. However, we may, in the future, decide to pay dividends on our common stock. Any declaration and payment of cash dividends in the future, if any, will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon such factors as earnings levels, cash flows, capital requirements, levels of indebtedness, restrictions imposed by applicable law, our overall financial condition, restrictions in our debt agreements and any other factors deemed relevant by our board of directors.

As a holding company, our ability to pay dividends depends on our receipt of cash dividends from our operating subsidiaries. Our ability to pay dividends will therefore be restricted as a result of restrictions on their ability to pay dividends to us under our Senior Facilities, the Indentures and under other current and future indebtedness that we or they may incur. See Item 1A of Part I “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Ownership of our Common Stock” and Item 7 of Part II “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources.”

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

For information regarding securities authorized for issuance under equity compensation plans, see Part III, Item 12 - "Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters."

Stock Performance Graph

The graph set forth below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock between August 5, 2020 (the date our common stock commenced trading on the Nasdaq) and December 31, 2021 with the cumulative total return of (i) the Standard & Poor's ("S&P") 500 Index and (ii) the S&P 500 Information Technology Index over the same period. All values assume the investment of $100 in our common stock and both of the other indices on August 5, 2020 and assumes the reinvestment of dividends. The graph uses the closing market price on August 5, 2020 of $16.39 per share as the initial value of our common stock. The comparisons shown below are based upon historical data. We caution that the stock price performance shown is not necessarily indicative of, nor is it intended to forecast, the potential future performance of our common stock.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

Not Applicable.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

None.

ITEM 6 - [RESERVED]

ITEM 7 - MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION

AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Overview

We are a leading end-to-end multicloud technology services company. We design, build and operate our customers’ cloud environments across all major technology platforms, irrespective of technology stack or deployment model. We partner with our customers at every stage of their cloud journey, enabling them to modernize applications, build new products and adopt innovative technologies. We serve our customers with a unique combination of proprietary technology resulting from over $1 billion of investment and services expertise from a team of highly skilled consultants and engineers. And we provide our customers with unbiased expertise and technology solutions, delivered over the world’s leading cloud services, all wrapped in Fanatical Customer Experience.

We aim to be our customers’ most trusted advisor and services partner in their path to cloud transformation and to accelerate the value of their cloud investments. We give customers the ability to make fluid decisions when choosing the right technologies, and we recommend solutions based on customers’ unique objectives. In this way, we empower our customers to harness the full benefits of cloud adoption.

Our team of 6,600 highly skilled Rackers, including consultants and engineers, partners with companies at every stage of their cloud transformation journey

We deliver our services to a global customer base through an integrated service delivery model. We have a presence in more than 60 cities around the world. This footprint allows us to better serve customers based in various countries, especially multinational companies requiring cross-border solutions. We have a strong presence with customers of all sizes, including enterprise businesses (revenue in excess of $3 billion), mid-market businesses (revenue of $300 million to $3 billion) and commercial customers (revenue less than $300 million).

On November 3, 2016, Rackspace Hosting (now named Rackspace Technology Global) was acquired by Inception Parent, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Pursuant to the merger agreement, dated as of August 26, 2016, Rackspace Technology Global merged with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inception Parent, with Rackspace Technology Global surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inception Parent.

We operate our business and report our results through three reportable segments: (1) Multicloud Services, (2) Apps & Cross Platform and (3) OpenStack Public Cloud. Our Multicloud Services segment includes our multicloud services offerings, as well as professional services related to designing and building multicloud solutions and cloud-native applications. Our Apps & Cross Platform segment includes managed applications, managed security and data services, as well as professional services related to designing and implementing application, security and data services. In early 2017, we determined that our OpenStack Public Cloud offering was not core to our go-forward operations and we ceased to incentivize our sales team to promote and sell the product by the end of that year. We continue to serve our existing OpenStack Public Cloud customer base while we focus our growth strategy and investments on our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform offerings. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 20, "Segment Reporting" for additional information about our segments. We refer to certain supplementary Core financial measures, which reflect the results or otherwise pertain to the performance of our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments, in the aggregate. Our Core financial measures exclude the results and performance of our OpenStack Public Cloud segment.

We generate revenue primarily through the sale of consumption-based contracts for our services offerings, which are recurring in nature. We also generate revenue from the sale of professional services related to designing and building customer solutions, which are non-recurring in nature. Arrangements within our Multicloud Services offerings generally have a fixed term, typically from 12 to 36 months, with a monthly recurring fee based on the computing resources provided to and utilized by the customer, the complexity of the underlying infrastructure and the level of support we provide. Our other primary sources of revenue are for public cloud services within our Multicloud Services, our Apps & Cross Platform and our OpenStack Public Cloud offerings. Contracts for these arrangements typically operate on a consumption model and can be canceled at any time without penalty.

We sell our services through direct sales teams, third-party channel partners and via online orders. Our sales model is based on both distributed and centralized sales teams with leads generated from technology partners, customer referrals, channel partners and corporate marketing efforts. We offer customers the flexibility to select the best combination of resources in order to meet the requirements of their unique applications and provide the technology to seamlessly operate and manage multiple cloud computing environments.

On November 15, 2019, we acquired 100% of Onica, an AWS managed service provider of cloud-native consulting and managed services, including strategic advisory, architecture and engineering and application development services, for net cash consideration of $316 million, of which $62 million was allocated to amortizable intangible assets. Onica was integrated into our Multicloud Services segment and contributed $21 million in revenue to our results in 2019 for the month and a half following its acquisition. Onica’s results of operations subsequent to the November 15, 2019 acquisition date are included in the accompanying consolidated financial statements.

Refer to Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 16, "Acquisitions" for more detail on this acquisition.

On August 7, 2020, we completed the IPO, in which we issued and sold 33,500,000 shares of our common stock at a public offering price of $21.00 per share.

On July 21, 2021, we committed to the July 2021 Restructuring Plan which will drive a change in the type and location of certain positions and is expected to result in the termination of approximately 10% of our workforce. We recorded total charges of $50.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 related to this restructuring plan. This included $25.4 million for employee related costs and other costs accounted for as exit and disposal costs under ASC 420 as described in Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 11, "July 2021 Restructuring Plan." Employee related costs consisted primarily of one-time termination benefits and certain contractual termination benefits with executives. Other costs consisted of professional fees, asset write-offs and the impact of a contract termination with a third-party. The remaining $25.1 million of expenses consisted primarily of one-time offshore build out costs. We expect to incur additional expenses of approximately $15 million over the next 12 months. After the July 2021 Restructuring Plan is implemented, we expect to realize approximately $95 to $100 million in gross annual savings compared to expense levels prior to the commencement of the plan.

Impact of COVID-19

The outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus, referred to as COVID-19, has spread globally, including within the U.S. and resulted in the World Health Organization declaring the outbreak a "pandemic" in March 2020, with variant strains of the virus continuing to be identified globally. The effects of COVID-19 and its variants continue to evolve, and the full impact and duration of the virus are unknown. Managing COVID-19 has severely impacted healthcare systems and businesses worldwide. The effects of COVID-19 and its variants and the response to the virus have negatively impacted overall economic conditions. To date, COVID-19 and its variants have not adversely affected our results of operations or financial condition in any material respect; however, the ultimate extent of the impact of COVID-19 and its variants on our operational and financial performance will depend on certain developments, including the duration and severity of the outbreak, the pace of economic recovery, the possible resurgence in the spread of the virus or any variant strain(s) of the virus, advances in testing, treatment, and prevention, including the efficacy and availability of vaccines, its impact on our customers, vendors and employees and its impact on our sales cycles as well as industry events, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. If the pandemic worsens or the global economic recovery slows, we could experience service disruption, loss of customers or higher levels of doubtful trade accounts receivable, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and cash flows. We continue to focus on the health and safety of our employees, customers and partners and, among other things, have implemented a work-from-home policy and are limiting contact between our employees and customers while continuing to deliver Fanatical Customer Experience. To date, the impact on our business has been limited

as most of our services were, even before the pandemic, being delivered remotely or capable of being delivered remotely and we have a diverse customer base. The full extent to which COVID-19 and its variants may impact our financial condition or results of operations over the medium to long term, however, remains uncertain. Due to our recurring revenue business model, the effect of COVID-19 and its variants may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods, if at all. We will continue to actively monitor the situation and may take further actions that alter our business operations as may be required by federal, state or local authorities, or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, partners, suppliers and stockholders, including developing a plan to return our workforce back to the office when it is safe to do so.

Key Factors Affecting Our Performance

We believe our combination of proprietary technology, automation capabilities and technical expertise creates a value proposition for our customers that is hard to replicate for both competitors and in-house IT departments. Our continued success depends to a significant extent on our ability to meet the challenges presented by our highly competitive and dynamic market, including the following key factors:

Differentiating Our Service Offerings in a Competitive Market Environment

Customer Relationships and Retention

Our success greatly depends on our ability to retain and develop opportunities with our existing customers and to attract new customers. We operate in a growing but competitive and evolving market environment, requiring innovation to differentiate us from our competitors. We believe that our integrated cloud service portfolio and our differentiated customer experience and technology are keys to retaining and growing revenue from existing customers as well as acquiring new customers. For example, we believe that the Rackspace Fabric provides customers a unified experience across their entire cloud and security footprint, and that our Rackspace Elastic Engineering model, announced in April 2021, helps customers embrace a cloud native approach with on-demand access to a dedicated team of highly skilled cloud architects and engineers. These offerings differentiate us from legacy IT service providers that operate under long-term fixed and project-based fee structures often tethered to their existing technologies with less automation.

Business Mix Shift

The mix of revenue within our Multicloud Services segment has shifted in recent years, from mature offerings such as managed hosting and colocation to managed public cloud services. Since the mature offerings are hosted on our own infrastructure, these offerings carry a higher gross margin, but also a higher burden on the company for operating expenses and capital expenditures. Conversely, as managed public cloud services are hosted on third-party infrastructure, these services carry a lower gross margin, but also a correspondingly lower operating expense and capital expenditure burdens. As a result, despite the difference in gross margins between the mature offerings and the growth offerings, the operating margins for the different classes of offerings is relatively similar.

Shift in Capital Intensity

Mergers and Acquisitions

We have completed and substantially integrated five acquisitions since 2017, including Onica, an AWS cloud services company that we acquired in the fourth quarter of 2019. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 16, "Acquisitions." We routinely evaluate potential acquisitions that align with our growth strategy. Our acquisitions in any period may impact the comparability of our results with prior and subsequent periods. The integration of acquisitions also requires dedication of substantial time and resources, and we may never fully realize synergies and other benefits that we expect. Acquisition purchase price accounting, which may require significant judgment, and amortization and depreciation of acquired assets, may result in our recording post-acquisition costs that are higher or lower than the underlying, steady state operating costs of the acquired business. Additionally, the terms of any such acquisition, particularly with respect to the treatment of deferred revenue, may adversely impact our post-acquisition recognition of revenue from the acquired business. Additionally, our acquired businesses or assets may not perform as we expect, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Human Capital

Our ability to be successful and to execute on our strategies depends on our ability to hire and retain qualified employees. Like others in our industry, we are realizing higher than historical levels of voluntary attrition. As a result, we are accelerating our best shoring efforts and expanding the geographic reach of our recruiting pool. The company continues to enhance and develop programs to attract, retain and develop top talent.

Key Operating Metrics

The following table and discussion present and summarize our key operating performance indicators, which management uses as measures of our current and future business and financial performance:

Bookings

We calculate Bookings for a given period as the annualized monthly value of our recurring customer contracts entered into during the period from (i) new customers and (ii) net upgrades by existing customers within the same workload, plus the actual (not annualized) estimated value of professional services consulting, advisory or project-based orders received during the period. “Recurring customer contracts” are any contracts entered into on a multi-year or month-to-month basis, but excluding any professional services contracts for consulting, advisory or project-based work.

Bookings for any period may reflect orders that we perform in the same period, orders that remain outstanding as of the end of the period and the annualized value of recurring month-to-month contracts entered into during the period, even if the terms of such contracts do not require the contract to be renewed. Bookings include net upgrades by existing customers within the same workload, but exclude net downgrades by such customers within that workload. Any customer that contracts for a new workload is considered a new customer and the entire value of the contract or upgrade is recorded in Bookings, irrespective of whether the same customer canceled or downgraded other workloads. Bookings also do not include the impact of any known contract non-renewals or service cancellations by our customers, except for positive net upgrades by existing customers. In cases where a new or upgrading customer enters into a multi-year contract, Bookings include only the annualized contract value. Bookings do not include usage-based fees in excess of contracted minimum commitments until actually incurred.

We use Bookings to measure the amount of new business generated in a period, which we believe is an important indicator of new customer acquisition and our ability to cross-sell new services to existing customers. Bookings are also used by management as a factor in determining performance-based compensation for our sales force. While we believe Bookings, in combination with other metrics, is an indicator of our near-term future revenue opportunity, it is not intended to be used as a projection of future revenue. Our calculation of Bookings may differ from similarly titled metrics presented by other companies.

Our Bookings were $700.7 million, $1,126.1 million and $1,030.5 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. The decrease in Bookings from 2020 to 2021 is the result of the company’s focus in 2021 on growing revenue and profitability with the new customers onboarded in 2019 and 2020. Sales activities were previously heavily weighted towards new customer acquisition, and in particular infrastructure sales, which drives higher dollar bookings. While we continue to acquire new customers, we also aim to deepen relationships with these customers through high-margin services bookings. In addition, we are investing in initiatives to drive sales productivity improvements.

Annualized Recurring Revenue

We calculate ARR by annualizing our actual revenue from existing recurring customer contracts (as defined under “Bookings” above) for the most recently completed fiscal quarter. ARR is not adjusted for the impact of any known or projected future customer cancellations, service upgrades or downgrades or price increases or decreases.

We use ARR as a measure of our revenue trend and an indicator of our future revenue opportunity from existing recurring customer contracts, assuming zero cancellations. The amount of actual revenue that we recognize over any 12-month period is likely to differ from ARR at the beginning of that period, sometimes significantly. This may occur due to new Bookings, higher or lower professional services revenue, subsequent changes in our pricing, service cancellations, upgrades or downgrades and acquisitions or divestitures. For the avoidance of doubt, ARR for any period ending December 31 is calculated by annualizing our actual revenue from existing recurring customer contracts for the fourth quarter in that year. Our calculation of ARR may differ from similarly titled metrics presented by other companies.

Our ARR was $2,411.6 million, $2,711.1 million and $2,984.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Key Components of Statement of Operations

Revenue

A substantial amount of our revenue, particularly within our Multicloud Services segment, is generated pursuant to contracts that typically have a fixed term (typically from 12 to 36 months). Our customers generally have the right to cancel their contracts by providing us with written notice prior to the end of the fixed term, though most of our contracts provide for termination fees in the event of cancellation prior to the end of their term, typically amounting to the outstanding value of the contract. These contracts include a monthly recurring fee, which is determined based on the computing resources utilized and provided to the customer, the complexity of the underlying infrastructure and the level of support we provide. Our public cloud services within the Multicloud Services segment and most of our Apps & Cross Platform and OpenStack Public Cloud services generate usage-based revenue invoiced on a monthly basis and can be canceled at any time without penalty. We also generate revenue from usage-based fees and fees from professional services earned from customers using our hosting and other services. We typically recognize revenue on a daily basis, as services are provided, in an amount that reflects the consideration to which we expect to be entitled in exchange for our services. Our usage-based arrangements generally include a variable consideration component, consisting of monthly utility fees, with a defined price and undefined quantity. Our customer contracts also typically contain service level guarantees, including with respect to network uptime requirements, that provide discounts when we fail to meet specific obligations and, with respect to certain products, we may offer volume discounts based on usage. As these variable consideration components consist of a single distinct daily service provided on a single performance obligation, we account for all of them as services are provided and earned.

Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue consists primarily of usage charges for third-party infrastructure and personnel costs (including salaries, bonuses, benefits and share-based compensation) for engineers, developers and other employees involved in the delivery of services to our customers. Cost of revenue also includes depreciation of servers, software and other systems infrastructure, data center rent and other infrastructure maintenance and support costs, including software license costs and utilities. Cost of revenue is driven mainly by demand for our services, our service mix and the cost of labor in a given geography.

Selling, general and administrative expenses

SG&A expenses consist primarily of personnel costs (including salaries, bonuses, commissions, benefits and share-based compensation) for our sales force, executive team and corporate administrative and support employees, including our human resources, finance, accounting and legal functions. SG&A also includes R&D costs, repair and maintenance of corporate infrastructure, facilities rent, third-party advisory fees (including audit, legal and management consulting costs), marketing and advertising costs and insurance, as well as the amortization of related intangible assets and certain depreciation of fixed assets.

Income taxes

Results of Operations

We discuss our historical results of operations, and the key components of those results, below. Past financial results are not necessarily indicative of future results.

Year Ended December 31, 2020 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2021

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the specified periods, as well as changes between periods and as a percentage of revenue for those same periods (totals in table may not foot due to rounding):

Revenue

Revenue increased $302 million, or 11.2%, to $3,010 million in 2021 from $2,707 million in 2020. Revenue was positively impacted by new customer acquisition and growing customer spend in our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments, as discussed below.

OpenStack Public Cloud revenue in 2021 decreased 20% on an actual basis, and 21% on a constant currency basis, from 2020 due to customer churn.

As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue increased 530 basis points in 2021 to 68.9% from 63.6% in 2020, primarily driven by a 1,270 basis point increase in usage charges for third-party infrastructure, partially offset by a decrease related to personnel costs, depreciation, data center, and license expense.

The table below presents a reconciliation of total consolidated gross profit to Non-GAAP Gross Profit, which represents the total of our individual segment gross profit measures.

Our segment gross profit and gross margin for the periods indicated, and the change in gross profit between periods is shown in the table below:

Multicloud Services gross profit decreased by 2% in 2021 from 2020. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue decreased by 540 basis points, reflecting a 24% increase in segment cost of revenue and a 14% increase in segment revenue. The increase in costs was mainly driven by higher third-party infrastructure costs due to the increase in revenue in our growth offerings resulting in a larger proportion of these services within this segment, partially offset by lower personnel, depreciation, data center and license expense.

Apps & Cross Platform gross profit increased 18% in 2021 from 2020. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue increased by 170 basis points, reflecting a 9% increase in segment cost of revenue and a 12% increase in segment revenue. The increase in cost of revenue was primarily driven by the segment’s higher business volume as well as higher third-party infrastructure costs.

OpenStack Public Cloud gross profit decreased 33% in 2021 from 2020 due to customer churn. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue decreased by 710 basis points, reflecting a 20% decrease in segment revenue, partially offset by a 10% decrease in segment cost of revenue.

The aggregate amount of costs reflected in consolidated gross profit but excluded from Non-GAAP Gross Profit was $59.6 million in 2021, an increase of $18.0 million from $41.6 million in 2020, reflecting higher restructuring and transformation expenses and share-based compensation, partially offset by lower purchase accounting adjustments and other compensation expense.

For more information about our segment gross profit, see Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 20, "Segment Reporting."

As a percentage of revenue, SG&A expenses decreased 530 basis points, to 30.1% in 2021 from 35.4% in 2020, for the reasons discussed above.

As a result of our annual goodwill impairment test performed during the fourth quarter of 2021, we determined that the carrying amount of our OpenStack Public Cloud reporting unit exceeded its fair value and recorded a goodwill impairment charge of $52 million. The impairment was driven by deteriorating forecasted margins and cash flows within the reporting unit primarily due to operating costs declining at a slower rate than previously anticipated even after factoring in the long term impacts of the July 2021 Restructuring Plan. There was no such impairment in 2020. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 5, "Goodwill and Intangible Assets" for further discussion.

In January 2021, we recorded a $20 million gain related to the sale of a parcel of undeveloped land in the United Kingdom adjacent to one of our existing data centers, as further discussed in Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 4, "Property, Equipment and Software, net."

Interest expense decreased $63 million to $205 million in 2021 from $268 million in 2020, primarily driven by a reduction in total debt outstanding and lower interest rates as a result of significant debt refinancing transactions between periods.

In 2021, we recorded $37 million and $0.5 million of debt modification costs and extinguishment loss related to the February 2021 Refinancing Transaction and termination of the Receivables Financing Facility, respectively. In 2020, we recorded $72 million of debt modification costs and extinguishment loss related to the repayment of $1,120 million aggregate principal amount of 8.625% Senior Notes. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 7, "Debt" for further discussion.

Our income tax benefit decreased by $35 million to $31 million in 2021 from $66 million in 2020. Our effective tax rate decreased from 21.2% in 2020 to 12.4% in 2021. The decrease in the effective tax rate year-over-year is primarily due to the geographic distribution of profits, the tax impact associated with goodwill impairment and changes in income tax reserves. The difference between the effective rate for 2021 and the statutory rate is primarily due to the geographic distribution of profits, the tax impact associated with goodwill impairment and executive compensation that is nondeductible under IRC Section 162(m) as a result of the IPO.

Year Ended December 31, 2019 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2020

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the specified periods, as well as changes between periods and as a percentage of revenue for those same periods (totals in table may not foot due to rounding):

NM = not meaningful.

Revenue increased $269 million, or 11.0%, to $2,707 million in 2020 from $2,438 million in 2019. Revenue was positively impacted by the acquisition of Onica in November 2019 as well as new customer acquisition and growing customer spend in our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments, as discussed below.

Cost of revenue increased $296 million, or 21%, to $1,723 million in 2020 from $1,427 million in 2019, primarily due to an increase in usage charges for third-party infrastructure associated with growth in these offerings and the impact of an increased volume of larger, multi-year customer contracts which typically have a larger infrastructure component and lower margins. Personnel costs also increased, primarily due to the addition of former Onica employees and an increase in share-based compensation expense related to restricted stock granted to all eligible employees upon completion of the IPO, partially offset by a reduction in non-equity incentive bonus expense. The increase in third-party infrastructure and personnel costs was partially offset by a decrease in depreciation expense primarily related to certain property, equipment and software reaching the end of its useful life for depreciation purposes as we shift towards faster-growing, value-added service offerings which have significantly lower capital requirements than our legacy capital-intensive revenue streams. We also had year-over-year expense reductions in data center and license expenses as a result of initiatives to lower our cost structure, which included the consolidation of data center facilities and optimizing our vendor license spending.

As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue increased 510 basis points in 2020 to 63.6% from 58.5% in 2019, driven by a 1,030 basis point increase in usage charges for third-party infrastructure, partially offset by a 270 basis point decrease related to data center and license expenses and a 240 basis point reduction in depreciation expense.

The table below presents a reconciliation of total consolidated gross profit to Non-GAAP Gross Profit, which represents the total of our individual segment gross profit measures.

Our segment gross profit and gross margin for the periods indicated, and the change in gross profit between periods is shown in the table below:

Multicloud Services gross profit increased by 5% in 2020 from 2019. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue decreased by 450 basis points, reflecting a 26% increase in segment cost of revenue and a 17% increase in segment revenue. The increase in costs was mainly driven by higher third-party infrastructure costs and the addition of former Onica employees’ personnel costs. Partially offsetting the increase was lower depreciation and data center costs.

Apps & Cross Platform gross profit decreased by 3% in 2020 from 2019. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue decreased by 290 basis points, reflecting a 10% increase in segment cost of revenue and a 5% increase in segment revenue. The increase in cost of revenue was driven by the segment’s higher business volume as well as investments to support more service-oriented offerings and higher third-party infrastructure costs.

OpenStack Public Cloud gross profit decreased 31% in 2020 from 2019 due to customer churn. Segment gross profit as a percentage of segment revenue decreased by 720 basis points, reflecting a 20% decrease in segment revenue, partially offset by an 8% decrease in segment cost of revenue.

The aggregate amount of costs reflected in consolidated gross profit but excluded from Non-GAAP Gross Profit was $41.6 million in 2020, an increase of $13.4 million from $28.2 million in 2019, reflecting higher restructuring and transformation expenses, share-based compensation and other compensation expense, partially offset by lower purchase accounting adjustments.

For more information about our segment gross profit, see Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 20, "Segment Reporting."

Selling, general and administrative expenses increased $48 million, or 5%, to $960 million in 2020 from $912 million in 2019, due to costs related to business transformation initiatives, integrating Onica, and costs incurred related to the IPO, including incremental costs to operate as a public company, partially offset by a reduction in management consulting fees as the agreements were terminated in connection with the IPO. Personnel costs increased due to higher commissions expense, driven by Bookings growth, and share-based compensation expense, partially offset by lower severance expense and non-equity incentive bonus expense in 2020. Additionally, travel costs declined as a result of COVID-19 travel restrictions.

As a percentage of revenue, selling, general and administrative expenses decreased 200 basis points, to 35.4% in 2020 from 37.4% in 2019, for the reasons discussed above, including a 150 basis points reduction in personnel costs, and further impacted by our revenue growth while other SG&A expenses decreased.

Gain on Divestiture

In March 2019, we recorded a $2 million gain related to the payment of a promissory note receivable that was issued in conjunction with the divestiture of our Mailgun business in 2017. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 15, "Divestitures," included elsewhere in this Annual Report for more information on this transaction.

Interest Expense

Interest expense decreased $62 million to $268 million in 2020 from $330 million in 2019 primarily due to the January 2020 designation of certain of our interest rate swap agreements as cash flow hedges, as further discussed in Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 17, "Derivatives." In 2019, we recorded $52 million of interest expense related to the change in the fair value of interest rate swaps compared to $14 million recorded to interest expense in 2020. Also contributing to the decrease in interest expense was the reduction in our total debt balance largely due to the repayment of $1,120 million aggregate principal amount of 8.625% Senior Notes during 2020.

Gain on investments was $1 million in 2020 compared to $100 million in 2019, driven by the realized gain on our investment in CrowdStrike of $97 million, as further discussed in Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 6, "Investments."

Debt Modification Costs and Extinguishment Gain (Loss)

In 2020 we recorded $72 million of debt modification costs and extinguishment loss related to the repayment of $1,120 million aggregate principal amount of 8.625% Senior Notes. We recorded a $10 million gain on debt extinguishment in 2019 related to repurchases of $77 million principal amount of 8.625% Senior Notes. See Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 7, "Debt" for further discussion.

Other Income (Expense), Net

We had $3 million of other income in 2020 compared to $3 million of other expense in 2019 primarily related to foreign currency transaction gains, partially offset by changes in the fair value of foreign currency derivatives, as further discussed in Item 8 of Part II, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data- Note 17, "Derivatives."

Benefit for Income Taxes

Our income tax benefit increased by $46 million to $66 million in 2020 from $20 million in 2019. Our effective tax rate increased from 16.4% in 2019 to 21.2% in 2020. The increase in the effective tax rate year-over-year and the difference between the effective tax rate for 2020 and the statutory rate are primarily due to the geographic distribution of profits and changes in income tax reserves, as well as executive compensation that is nondeductible under IRC Section 162(m) as a result of the IPO.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We track several non-GAAP financial measures to monitor and manage our underlying financial performance. The following discussion includes the presentation of constant currency revenue, Non-GAAP Gross Profit, Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit, Adjusted EBITDA and Non-GAAP EPS, which are non-GAAP financial measures that exclude the impact of certain costs, losses and gains that are required to be included in our profit and loss measures under GAAP. Although we believe these measures are useful to investors and analysts for the same reasons they are useful to management, as discussed below, these measures are not a substitute for, or superior to, U.S. GAAP financial measures or disclosures. Other companies may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures. We have reconciled each of these non-GAAP measures to the applicable most comparable GAAP measure throughout this MD&A.

Constant Currency Revenue

We use constant currency revenue as an additional metric for understanding and assessing our growth excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations on our international business operations. Constant currency information compares results between periods as if exchange rates had remained constant period over period and is calculated by translating the non-U.S. dollar income statement balances for the most current period to U.S. dollars using the average exchange rate from the comparative period rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective period. We also believe this is an important metric to help investors evaluate our performance in comparison to prior periods.

The following tables present, by segment, actual and constant currency revenue and constant currency revenue growth rates, for and between the periods indicated:

Non-GAAP Gross Profit

Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA

We present Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA because they are a basis upon which management assesses our performance and we believe they are useful to evaluating our financial performance. We believe that excluding items from net income that may not be indicative of, or are unrelated to, our core operating results, and that may vary in frequency or magnitude, enhances the comparability of our results and provides a better baseline for analyzing trends in our business.

The Rackspace Acquisition was structured as a leveraged buyout of Rackspace Technology Global, our predecessor, and resulted in several accounting and capital structure impacts. For example, the revaluation of our assets and liabilities resulted in a significant increase in our amortizable intangible assets and goodwill, the incurrence of a significant amount of debt to partially finance the Rackspace Acquisition resulted in interest payments that reflect our high leverage and cost of debt capital, and the conversion of Rackspace Technology Global’s unvested equity compensation into a cash-settled bonus plan and obligation to pay management fees to our equityholders resulted in new cash commitments. In addition, the change in ownership and management resulting from the Rackspace Acquisition led to a strategic realignment in our operations that had a significant impact on our financial results. Following the Rackspace Acquisition, we acquired several businesses, sold businesses and investments that we deemed to be non-core and launched multiple integration and business transformation initiatives intended to improve the efficiency of people and operations and identify recurring cost savings and new revenue growth opportunities. We believe that these transactions and activities resulted in costs, which have historically been substantial, and that may not be indicative of, or are not related to, our core operating results, including interest related to the incurrence of additional debt to finance acquisitions and third party legal, advisory and consulting fees and severance, retention bonus and other internal costs that we believe would not have been incurred in the absence of these transactions and activities and are also may not be indicative of, or related to, our core operating results.

We define Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss) as net income (loss) adjusted to exclude the impact of non-cash charges for share-based compensation and cash charges related to the settlement of our predecessor’s equity plan, special bonuses and other compensation expense, transaction-related costs and adjustments, restructuring and transformation charges, management fees, the amortization of acquired intangible assets and certain other non-operating, non-recurring or non-core gains and losses, as well as the tax effects of these non-GAAP adjustments.

We define Non-GAAP Operating Profit as income (loss) from operations, adjusted to exclude the impact of non-cash charges for share-based compensation and cash charges related to the settlement of our predecessor’s equity plan, special bonuses and other compensation expense, transaction-related costs and adjustments, restructuring and transformation charges, management fees, the amortization of acquired intangible assets and certain other non-operating, non-recurring or non-core gains and losses.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) adjusted to exclude the impact of non-cash charges for share-based compensation and cash charges related to the settlement of our predecessor’s equity plan, special bonuses and other compensation expense, transaction-related costs and adjustments, restructuring and transformation charges, management fees, certain other non-operating, non-recurring or non-core gains and losses, interest expense, income taxes, and depreciation and amortization.

Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are management’s principal metrics for measuring our underlying financial performance. Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA, along with other quantitative and qualitative information, are also the principal financial measures used by management and our board of directors in determining performance-based compensation for our management and key employees.

These non-GAAP measures are not intended to imply that we would have generated higher income or avoided net losses if the Rackspace Acquisition and the subsequent transactions and initiatives had not occurred. In the future we may incur expenses or charges such as those added back to calculate Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit or Adjusted EBITDA. Our presentation of Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by these items. Other companies, including our peer companies, may calculate similarly-titled measures in a different manner from us, and therefore, our non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similarly-tiled measures of other companies. Investors are cautioned against using these measures to the exclusion of our results in accordance with GAAP.

The following tables present a reconciliation of Non-GAAP Net Income, Non-GAAP Operating Profit and Adjusted EBITDA to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures: