heading "Markets and Distribution."

The Company relies on third-party music content, which may not be available to the Company on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

The Company contracts with third parties to offer their music content to customers through the Company's iTunes Music Store. The Company pays substantial fees to obtain the rights to offer to its customers this third-party music. Many of the Company's licensing arrangements with these third-party content providers are short-term in nature and do not guarantee the future renewal of these arrangements at commercially reasonable terms, if at all. Certain parties in the music industry have announced their intent to consolidate their music distribution operations, which could limit the availability and increase the fees required to offer music content to customers through the iTunes Music Store. Further, some third-party content providers currently, or may in the future, offer music products and services that compete with the Company's music products and services, and could take action to make it more difficult or impossible for the Company to license their music content in the future. If the Company is unable to continue to offer a wide variety of music content at reasonable prices with acceptable usage rules, or continue to expand its geographic reach outside the U.S., then sales and gross margins of the Company's iTunes Music Store as well as related hardware and peripherals, including iPods, may be adversely affected.

Third-party content providers and artists require that the Company provide certain digital rights management solutions and other security mechanisms. If the requirements from content providers or artists change, then the Company may be required to further develop or license technology to address such new rights and requirements. There is no assurance that the Company will be able to develop or license such solutions at a reasonable cost and in a timely manner, if at all, which could have a materially adverse effect on the Company's operating results and financial position.

The Company's future performance is dependent upon support from third-party software developers. If third-party software applications cease to be developed or available for the Company's hardware products, then customers may choose not to buy the Company's products.

The Company believes that decisions by customers to purchase the Company's personal computers, as opposed to Windows-based systems, are often based on the availability of third-party software for particular applications such as Microsoft Office. The Company also believes the availability of third-party application software for the Company's hardware products depends in part on third-party developers' perception and analysis of the relative benefits of developing, maintaining, and upgrading such software for the Company's products versus software for the larger Windows market. This analysis is based on factors such as the perceived strength of the Company and its products, the anticipated potential revenue that may be generated, continued acceptance by customers of Mac OS X, and the costs of developing such software products.