What is your current focus on SRL, specifically in the realm of messaging security?
The team is working on a number of technologies to enhance approaches already present in our products like the ones from Vontu. We are also researching on performance and scalability of some products. Boundary-less enterprise, SaaS models, long-term market trends in data loss prevention, and messaging continue to keep us going.

Any significant changes that intrigue you in terms of how the whole messaging landscape is evolving?
Yes, one thing I find particularly interesting is the time we spend on scanning good messages, just to spot and pick out the bad ones. It is harder to spot and leaf through a good message instead of a bad one. So why not work the other way around? Hence, we are working on improving the overall scanning performance.

Where is your trying the flip-it approach and how right has it turned out to be so far?
There are a number of projects that are attacking the same problems in a different way. Innovative technologies and virtualization are some of them.

Virtualization? How?
Virtualization is the latest trend and the future. But there are drawbacks on management, administration, cost issues, etc. The challenge is how to keep the virtualization environment safe because it comes in many forms.

Imagine a malicious program attacks; we can keep it in a virtualized cocoon, gauge its real impact, and then let it take off. The core technology of virtualization can have new applications as a security tool.

Symantec has been under the grey cloud of concern off and on, when it comes to simplifying and integrating acquisitions. Could you delve on how Project Hamlet handles that issue?
Well, its not specific to Hamlet but overall; Symantec has been learning important lessons to integrate acquisitions. One of them is that too much or wrong integration is not a good thing. In the past, we used to throw open covers of technologies from both the sides and integrate at gut-level.

Too low a level of integration consumes too much detail and time. We have learnt this through hard lessons. So now we are again looking at going the other way round and do it at high-level with new collaboration architecture.

Pratima Harigunani/CyberMedia News
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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