pursuant to our revolving credit facilities and $3.25 billion of long-term senior notes issued) in comparison to fiscal 2010 ($4.5 billion of long-term senior notes and $2.8 billion of commercial paper notes issued). This unfavorable impact to our financing cash flows was partially offset by a cash favorable reduction in debt repayments during fiscal 2011 (repayments of $2.25 billion of senior notes in January 2011 and $881 million of commercial paper notes) in comparison to fiscal 2010 (repayments of $1.9 billion of commercial paper notes, $1.0 billion of floating rate senior notes and $700 million of Sun’s legacy convertible notes) and an increase in proceeds from stock option exercises during fiscal 2011.

Fiscal 2010 Compared to Fiscal 2009:     Net cash provided by financing activities in fiscal 2010 increased compared to cash used by financing activities in fiscal 2009 due to our issuance of $4.5 billion of senior notes, our issuances of $2.8 billion of commercial paper notes, net of repayments, and a significant reduction in our common stock repurchases. These fiscal 2010 increases in cash flows from financing activities were partially offset by additional cash used for fiscal 2010 dividend payments and the fiscal 2010 repayment of $700 million of Sun’s legacy convertible notes.

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 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 $1.5 billion, $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion or approximately 16%, 16% and 19%, respectively, of our new software license revenues in fiscal 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively, and $117 million, or approximately 3%, of our hardware systems products revenues in fiscal 2011.

Recent Financing Activities

Revolving Credit Agreements :    On May 27, 2011, we entered into two revolving credit agreements with BNP Paribas, as initial lender and administrative agent; and BNP Paribas Securities Corp., as sole lead arranger and sole bookrunner (the 2011 Credit Agreements) to borrow $1.15 billion pursuant to these agreements. The 2011 Credit Agreements provided us with short-term borrowings for working capital