dividend payments and proceeds from stock option exercises.

Fiscal 2014 Compared to Fiscal 2013:     Net cash used for financing activities in fiscal 2014 decreased in comparison to fiscal 2013 primarily due to the repayment of $3.0 billion of borrowings pursuant to senior notes maturities and certain expired revolving credit facilities in fiscal 2013 (no repayments during fiscal 2014), a net increase in borrowings during fiscal 2014 (we issued €2.0 billion and $3.0 billion of senior notes during fiscal 2014 in comparison to $5.0 billion of senior notes issued during fiscal 2013), lower stock repurchase activity during fiscal 2014 and higher proceeds from stock option exercises during fiscal 2014. These fiscal 2014 cash favorable variances were partially offset by an increase in payments of cash dividends to stockholders in fiscal 2014 in comparison to fiscal 2013.

Fiscal 2013 Compared to Fiscal 2012:     Net cash used for financing activities in fiscal 2013 increased in comparison to fiscal 2012 primarily due to an increase in our common stock repurchases (we used $11.0 billion of cash for common stock repurchases during fiscal 2013 in comparison to $5.9 billion in fiscal 2012) and an increase in repayments of borrowings (we repaid $3.0 billion of borrowings pursuant to senior notes maturities and certain expired revolving credit facilities in fiscal 2013 in comparison to the repayments of $1.4 billion of short-term borrowings from expired revolving credit facilities, and legacy convertible notes assumed from RightNow in fiscal 2012), partially offset by our issuance of $5.0 billion of senior notes in October 2012, an increase in proceeds from stock option exercises and certain other financing activity cash flow increases, net.

Free cash flow:     To supplement our statements of cash flows presented on a GAAP basis, we use non-GAAP measures of cash flows on a trailing 4-quarter basis to analyze cash flows generated from our operations. We believe free cash flow is also useful as one of the bases for comparing our performance with our competitors. The presentation of non-GAAP free cash flow is not meant to be considered in isolation or as an alternative to net income as an indicator of our performance, or as an alternative to cash flows from operating activities as a measure of liquidity. We calculate free cash flows as follows:

 

Long-Term Customer Financing:     We offer certain of our customers the option to acquire our software products, hardware systems products and services offerings through separate long-term payment contracts. We generally sell these contracts that we have financed for our customers on a non-recourse basis to financial institutions within 90 days of the contracts’ dates of execution. We record the transfers of amounts due from customers to financial institutions as sales of financial assets because we are considered to have surrendered control of these financial assets. We financed $1.6 billion, $1.8 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, or approximately 17%, 19% and 17%, respectively, of our new software licenses revenues in fiscal 2014, 2013 and 2012, and $168 million, $161 million and $134 million,