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 digital content in the future. If the Company is unable to continue to offer a wide variety of digital 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 or growing Linux market. This analysis may be 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. To the extent the minority market share held by the Company in the personal computer market has caused software developers to question the Company’s prospects in the personal computer market, developers could be less inclined to develop new application software or upgrade existing software for the Company’s products and more inclined to devote their resources to developing and upgrading software for the larger Windows market or growing Linux market. Moreover, there can be no assurance software developers will continue to develop software for Mac OS X, the Company’s operating system, on a timely basis or at all. 

In June 2005, the Company announced its plan to begin using Intel microprocessors in its Macintosh computers. The Company plans to begin shipping certain models with Intel microprocessors by June 2006 and to complete this