of currency rate fluctuations, hardware systems products revenues decreased in fiscal 2012 for similar reasons as those noted above for our fiscal 2013 revenues decrease.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems products operating expenses declined in fiscal 2012 primarily due to reductions in hardware systems products costs associated with lower revenues, lower intangible asset amortization, and decreases in bad debt expenses, which were partially offset by increased employee related expenses.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems products margin and total margin as a percentage of revenues decreased in fiscal 2012 primarily due to the decrease in hardware systems products revenues and increase in hardware sales and marketing expenses.

Hardware Systems Support:     Our hardware systems support offerings provide customers with software updates for software components that are essential to the functionality of our server and storage products, such as Oracle Solaris and certain other software products, and can include product repairs, maintenance services and technical support services. Expenses associated with our hardware systems support operating segment include the cost of materials used to repair customer products, the cost of providing support services, largely personnel related expenses, and the amortization of our intangible assets associated with hardware systems support contracts and customer relationships obtained from our acquisitions.

 

Fiscal 2013 Compared to Fiscal 2012:     Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, hardware systems support revenues decreased in fiscal 2013 primarily due to reductions in sales volumes of certain of our legacy hardware systems product lines for which we offer our hardware systems support, partially offset by incremental revenues from our acquisitions.

As a result of our acquisitions, we recorded adjustments to reduce assumed hardware systems support obligations to their estimated fair values at the acquisition dates. Due to our application of business combination accounting rules, hardware systems support revenues related to hardware systems support contracts in the amounts of $14 million, $30 million and $148 million that would have been otherwise reported by our acquired businesses as independent entities were not recognized in fiscal 2013, 2012 and

2011, respectively. To the extent these underlying hardware systems support contracts are renewed, we will recognize the revenues for the full values of these contracts over the future support periods.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems support expenses decreased in fiscal 2013 primarily due to a reduction in employee related expenses attributable to decreased headcount, reduced service delivery costs due to operational initiatives, lower bad debt expenses, and lower amortization of intangible assets.

Excluding the effect of currency rate fluctuations, total hardware systems support margin and margin as a percentage of total revenues increased in fiscal 2013 due to the reduction in our total hardware systems support