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Ten months into the completion of the merger between Symantec and Veritas, the former announced its new charter at its annual event Symantec VISION 2006 at San Francisco. The strategy, borne out of the strengths of merged entities, rests on creating a software infrastructure layer that delivers on two fronts-data security and availability-domains of Symantec and Veritas respectively before the merger.

The news here is that Symantec now calls itself a software infrastructure company. Is the merger working? This was the obvious question on the minds of the attendees; enterprise customers of Symantec and Veritas, respective partners, analysts and media.

Credit is due to the merged entity in being able to articulate a coherent positioning for the company. The internal integration of the two organizations seems to have been done. Product roadmaps that were presented at the conference were in line with the new positioning. The difficult parts of the merger are to integrate the customer-facing functions. For instance, Symantec is yet to iron out important customer support issues that have arisen from the Veritas acquisition. This was evident from the open house that followed Symantec CEO John W Thompson's keynote. Particularly, Symantec has been experiencing difficulties in supporting Enterprise Vault, an e-mail archiving solution that Veritas in turn had bought from KVault. “We have struggled to ramp resources in support of the enterprise archiving product,” Thompson said, responding to a question from a disgruntled customer. “It's not anything to do with funding issues, but finding the necessary skills in our support centers.” This is being fixed, he added.

A New Portfolio
There were several announcements relating to product roadmaps that combined Veritas and Symantec product families, new product initiatives, and updated versions of existing products. Product families and services that map into specific markets or functions such as data centers, storage, server, business continuity and regulatory compliance were announced. The products are intended to help Symantec gain a larger footprint in the enterprise market. Thompson said, “This year message management and IT policy compliance are our major focus areas”.

Symantec has a thriving consumer business that accounted for nearly 28% of its overall revenue last fiscal. A key question is whether the enterprise focus would shift this downward. In an exclusive interview with Dataquest, Enrique Salem, senior vice president, consumer products and solutions, Symantec said, “Symantec is not getting any less focused on the consumer business and the 28% is all set to grow despite Symantec's aggressive strides into the enterprise market”.

The company is working on a new security solution code-named Genesis, now in beta, and scheduled for target launch before year end. Genesis extends the traditional pack of features such as firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam, and content filtering to include new areas such as transaction security, online backup of digital content and PC optimization. Yet another long-term initiative called Security 2.0 is about improving security related online business.  Said Salem, “Security 2.0 is about protecting digital interactions”.

Friend or Foe?
Symantec Vision 2006 provided proof that Microsoft is increasingly getting into Symantec's scheme of things. The conference was a week before Symantec sued Microsoft for allegedly misappropriating its intellectual property and violating a license related to data storage technology. But it was evident at the conference that Symantec had begun seeing Microsoft as a thorn in its way. “Our strategy is to out-innovate Microsoft. We know more about security than they ever will,” Thompson said. Microsoft's development of security products for its upcoming Vista update to the Windows operating system prompted Symantec to be bullish about taking on the software giant.

He added that Symantec would spend more on marketing, and added that it was not a “foregone conclusion” that Microsoft would “win” in the security marketplace. The company will also put resources into protecting customers with Microsoft systems. “Our belief is that the Windows environment needs to be protected like any other. Tightening the (Microsoft) stack will be an important investment in the coming year,” Thompson said.

Future Cast
Symantec has expanded significantly over the past years, with eight acquisitions since the start of last year, including those of Veritas Software, Sygate, WholeSecurity, BindView, IM Logic and Relicore. As part of its growth strategy, these acquisitions helped Symantec to either significantly change the growth trajectory or get IP in new areas that are strategically important. The strategy is likely to continue. Thompson called them 'relevant adjacencies'-new areas where Symantec has decided to play in the future. These include identity management, encryption, and a range of managed security services. Right now, Symantec is not a player in the identity management market, which is led by companies including CA, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle and which research firm IDC predicts will grow to almost $4 bn in the next three years.

The motivation behind offering more encryption capabilities is similar. Symantec's backup products offer limited encryption features, but security breach laws passed by several US states are driving demand for more, Thompson said. Symantec, in its role as a research and advisory partner in information security and vulnerability, works closely with many federal and state government entities. Thompson said, Symantec was considering adding managed services for backups, data archiving and e-mail. Symantec plans to focus its managed e-mail services on instant messaging and VoIP through its partnership with MX Logic, and will aim its backup and archiving services at small businesses, said Jeremy Burton, senior vice president of enterprise security and data management at Symantec.

Easwaradas Nair in San Francisco
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
The author is a contributing editor to Dataquest, based at Mountain View, CA. He was hosted by Symantec at the conference

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