Non-GAAP revenue, non-GAAP operating expenses, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the effect of the following items:

• Fair value of acquired deferred revenue is a purchase accounting adjustment recorded to reduce acquired deferred revenue to the fair value of the remaining obligation, so our GAAP revenue for the one year period after an acquisition does not reflect the full amount of revenue that would have been reported if the acquired deferred revenue was not written down to fair value. We believe excluding these adjustments to revenue from these contracts (and associated costs in fair value adjustment to deferred services cost) is useful to investors as an additional means to assess revenue trends of our business.
• Stock-based compensation is a non-cash expense relating to stock-based awards issued to executive officers, employees and outside directors, consisting of restricted stock, stock options and restricted stock units. We exclude this expense as it is a non-cash expense and we assess our internal operations excluding this expense and believe it facilitates comparisons to the performance of other companies in our industry.
• Amortization of acquired intangible assets is a non-cash expense that is impacted by the timing and magnitude of our acquisitions. We believe the assessment of our operations excluding these costs is relevant to our assessment of internal operations and comparisons to the performance of other companies in our industry.
• Acquisition-related charges included in general and administrative costs are direct costs of potential and completed acquisitions and expenses related to acquisition integration activities, including transaction fees, due diligence costs, severance and professional fees. In addition, subsequent adjustments to our initial estimated amount of contingent consideration associated with specific acquisitions are included within acquisition-related charges. These costs are not considered part of our normal operations as the occurrence and amount will vary depending on the timing and size of acquisitions.
• U.S. pension plan termination-related costs include charges related to our plan that we began terminating in the second quarter of 2014. Costs associated with the termination are not considered part of our regular operations.
• Legal settlement accrual is the amount accrued to settle our SEC and DOJ FCPA investigation in China, which was ultimately settled and paid in the second quarter of 2016 for $28.2 million. We view this as a non-ordinary course event and exclude it when reviewing our operating performance and believe it assists comparisons to the performance of other companies in our industry.
• Restructuring charges include excess facility restructuring charges and severance costs resulting from reductions of personnel driven by modifications to our business strategy and not considered part of our normal operations. These costs may vary in size based on our restructuring plan.
• Non-operating credit facility refinancing costs are non-operating charges we record as a result of the refinancing of our credit facility. We assess our internal operations excluding these costs and believe it facilitates comparisons to the performance of other companies in our industry.
• Income tax adjustments include the tax impact of the items above and assumes that we are profitable on a non-GAAP basis in the U.S. and one foreign jurisdiction, and eliminates the effect of the valuation allowance recorded against our net deferred tax assets in those jurisdictions. Additionally, we exclude other material tax items that we view as non-ordinary course.

PTC also provides information on “free cash flow” and “free cash flow return” to enable investors to assess our ability to generate cash without incurring additional external financings and to evaluate our performance against our announced long-term goal of returning approximately 40% of our free cash flow to shareholders via stock repurchases. Free-cash flow is net cash provided by (used in) operating activities less capital expenditures, and free-cash flow return is the value of shares repurchased divided by free cash flow. Free Cash Flow is not a measure of cash available for discretionary expenditures.

Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release that are not historic facts, including statements about our fourth quarter and full fiscal 2016 targets and other future financial and growth expectations, and anticipated tax rates, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks include: the macroeconomic and/or global manufacturing climates may not improve or may deteriorate; customers may not purchase our solutions when or at the rates we expect; our businesses, including our Internet of Things (IoT) business, may not expand and/or generate the revenue we expect; foreign currency exchange rates may vary from our expectations and thereby affect our reported revenue and expense; the mix of revenue between license & subscription solutions, support and professional services could be different than we expect, which could impact our EPS results; our customers may purchase more of our solutions as subscriptions than we expect, which would adversely affect near-term revenue, operating margins, and EPS; customers may not purchase subscriptions at the rate we expect; sales of our solutions as subscriptions may not have the longer-term effect on revenue that we expect; our workforce realignment may not achieve the expense savings we expect and may adversely affect our operations; we may be unable to generate sufficient operating cash flow to return 40% of free cash flow to shareholders and other uses of cash or our credit facility limits could preclude share repurchases; and a significant portion of our cash is held overseas and could be subject to significant taxes if repatriated. In addition, our assumptions concerning our future GAAP and non-GAAP effective income tax rates are based on estimates and other factors that could change, including the geographic mix of our revenue, expenses and profits and loans and cash repatriations from foreign subsidiaries. Other risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected are detailed from time to time in reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.