and the tax benefits that we realize may differ significantly from what we have recorded in previous reporting periods.

Allowances for Doubtful Accounts

We make judgments as to our ability to collect outstanding receivables and provide allowances for the portion of receivables when collection becomes doubtful. Provisions are made based upon a specific review of all significant outstanding invoices. For those invoices not specifically reviewed, provisions are provided at differing rates, based upon the age of the receivable, the collection history associated with the geographic region that the receivable was recorded and current economic trends. If the historical data we use to calculate the allowances for doubtful accounts does not reflect the future ability to collect outstanding receivables, additional provisions for doubtful accounts may be needed and our future results of operations could be materially affected.

Results of Operations

Impact of Acquisitions

The comparability of our operating results in fiscal 2010 compared to fiscal 2009 is impacted by our acquisitions, primarily the acquisition of Sun in our third quarter of fiscal 2010.

The comparability of our operating results in fiscal 2009 compared to fiscal 2008 is impacted by our acquisitions, primarily the acquisition of BEA Systems, Inc. in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2008.

In our discussion of changes in our results of operations from fiscal 2010 compared to fiscal 2009, and fiscal 2009 compared to fiscal 2008, we quantify the contribution of our acquired products to the growth in new software license revenues, software license updates and product support revenues, hardware systems products revenues (as applicable) and hardware systems support revenues (as applicable) for the one year period subsequent to the acquisition date. We also are able to quantify the total incremental expenses associated with our hardware systems products and hardware systems support operating segments. For fiscal 2010, we include estimates of Sun’s contributions to our total revenues and total operating income. These Sun estimates are based in part on management’s estimates and allocations of Sun’s direct revenue and expense contributions which cannot be separately identified as a result of our ongoing integration of the Sun and Oracle businesses. The incremental contributions of our other acquisitions to our other businesses and operating segments’ revenues and expenses are not provided as they either were not separately identifiable due to the integration of these operating segments into our existing operations and/or were insignificant to our results of operations during the periods presented.

We caution readers that, while pre- and post-acquisition comparisons as well as the quantified amounts themselves may provide indications of general trends, the acquisition information that we provide has inherent limitations for the following reasons:

	•	 	the quantifications cannot address the substantial effects attributable to changes in business strategies, including our sales force integration efforts. We believe that if our acquired companies had operated independently and sales forces had