| Symantec Corporation provides software and solutions to help individuals and enterprises assure the security, availability, and integrity of their information technology (IT), infrastructure and also information itself. The company delivers a set of security and availability products and services to enterprises, governments, small and medium-sized businesses, and consumers on a worldwide basis. Its delivery network includes direct, inside, and channel sales resources that support its ecosystem of approximately 50,000 partners worldwide, as well as various relationships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Internet service providers (ISPs), and retail and online stores. The company operates in three geographic regions: Americas, which includes North America, Canada, and Latin America; EMEA, which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific Japan. The company operates primarily in two diversified markets with in the software sector: the security market and the storage software market. The security market includes products that protect consumers and enterprises from threats to personal computers (PCs), computer networks, and electronic information. The storage software market includes products that manage, archive, protect, and recover business-critical data. The company has operations in 40 countries worldwide. Segments and Products The company primarily operates in five segments: Consumer Products, Security and Data Management, Data Center Management, Services, and Other. The other segment comprises sunset products and products nearing the end of their life cycle. Consumer Products The company's consumer Products segment focuses on delivering its Internet security, PC tuneup, and backup products to individual users and home offices. Its Norton brand of consumer security software products provides protection for Windows and Macintosh platforms. The company is marketing or developing feature LiveUpdate functionality, which automatically updates these products with the technology, virus definitions, firewall rules, Uniform Resource Locator (URL), databases, and uninstall scripts. The company’s primary consumer products include: Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus, and Norton 360. Norton Internet Security: This PC and transaction security suite helps defend home and home office users against the latest online threats by blocking online identity theft, detecting and eliminating spyware, removing viruses and worms, and protecting against hackers from entering a user’s system. The 2007 solution delivers essential protection — antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing, two-way firewall, rootkit detection, and intrusion prevention — as well as significantly improved performance. Customers can also receive antispam and parental controls through an optional add-on pack. Norton AntiVirus: This product safeguards against viruses, spyware, and other security risks. The 2007 version optimizes performance while providing improved Internet worm protection that blocks attacks from entire worm and virus families without requiring individual virus and worm signatures; improved kernel level rootkit protection, which protects against known and emerging hidden threats located at the level of the operating system; improved pre-install scan to help ensure an installation process; and cookie tracking support, which provides customers with the ability to remove tracking items known as cookies. Norton 360: This security service for mainstream computer users delivers protection across four categories: PC security, transaction security, online backup and restore, and PC tuneup. It also includes embedded support. Customers can also receive antispam and parental controls through an optional add-on pack. Security and Data Management The company’s Security and Data Management segment focuses on providing large to small and medium-sized businesses with solutions for compliance and security management, endpoint security, messaging management, and data protection management software solutions that allow its customers to secure, provision, backup, and remotely access their laptops, PCs, mobile devices, and servers. The company’s solutions include virus protection and content filtering, antispam, endpoint security, firewall and virtual private networking (VPN), intrusion protection, policy compliance, security management, managed security services, and early warning services. At the gateway level, its products run on Windows NT, Solaris, and Linux platforms. At the server level, its products operate on Windows NT, UNIX, Linux, and other main server platforms. At the client level, its products run on the Windows platform. The company’s primary enterprise security solutions address the following areas: Endpoint Security: The company’s security solutions enable organizations to evaluate, protect, and remediate both managed and unmanaged systems as they connect to corporate assets. Integrated solutions, such as Symantec AntiVirusand Symantec Client Security, include antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, intrusion prevention, and network access control technologies. Client machines, servers, and mobile devices are all protected by its technologies. Data Protection and Systems Management: Through solutions such as Backup Exec, pcAnywhere, and Ghost, the company enables customers to manage their computing systems and devices, including backup, recovery, deployment, migration, data archiving, and help-desk remote control. Enterprise Messaging Management: The company’s Enterprise Messaging Solutions provide a common framework for customers to consistently enforce content control policies across the enterprise, from email and instant messaging security to archiving. These solutions are built on antispam, content filtering, policy management, and archiving and retention technologies, allowing IT professionals to proactively prevent the risks of data leakage and policy violations while responding to e-Discovery requests. Its products include Symantec Information Foundation 2007, Symantec Mail Security, and Symantec Enterprise Vault. Compliance and Security Management: The company provides solutions to help customers define, control, and govern their IT policies from a central location. These solutions help organizations protect critical assets and reduce business risk by probing for network vulnerabilities, monitoring threats in real-time, retaining logs for analysis, managing security incidents, and demonstrating compliance with internal mandates and external regulations. The company’s solutions include Symantec Control Compliance Suite, Symantec BindViewPolicy Manager, Symantec Security Information Manager, and Symantec Enterprise Security Manager. Managed Security Services: Symantec Managed Security Services are designed to allow enterprise IT organizations to outsource their security management, monitoring, and response needs. The company's service offerings leverage the Internet security to protect the value of an organization’s networked assets and infrastructure. The company provides remote monitoring and management of vendor neutral firewall and VPN solutions; real- time monitoring and analysis of intrusion detection alerts; coordinated event monitoring, analysis, and management of Symantec security appliances; and integrated global intelligence services from its early warning solutions. The company's Managed Security Services uses global intelligence to offer analysis of security data to protect customers against emerging threats and reduces overall security risk. Threat and Early Warning Systems: The company's customized alerts of impending Internet-based attacks worldwide — with countermeasures to prevent attacks before they occur — enable companies to mitigate risk, manage threats, and help ensure business continuity. Data Center Management The company’s Data Center Management segment focuses on providing enterprise customers with storage and server management, data protection, and application performance management solutions across heterogeneous storage and server platforms. These solutions enable companies to standardize on a single layer of infrastructure software that works on every major distributed operating system and supports every major storage device, database, and application. The company’s primary data center management solutions address the following areas: Storage Management: These solutions provide storage management, storage resource management, storage utilization management, Storage Area Network (SAN), management, storage virtualization and replication solutions. Storage Foundation 5.0, announced in May 2006, provides IT organizations with visibility and control of storage assets in their heterogeneous data centers with enhancements including centralized management and enhanced storage virtualization, and includes Storage Foundation Basic designed for edge-tier workloads. Veritas Command CentralStorage, a storage resource management and SAN management solution, enables administrators to gain visibility into all the physical devices on their SAN, and provide capacity and utilization management and reporting. Server Management: These solutions allow enterprises to ensure the availability of critical applications, and to understand and manage their server and application infrastructure in an automated fashion. Veritas Cluster Server allows critical applications to remain operational, when the underlying physical servers running those applications experience outages. Through solutions such as Server Foundation, the company provides enterprise customers the ability to discover in detail what is running on all the servers in their data center, and to actively manage and administer those servers. The Server Foundation suite of products provides application virtualization, patch management, configuration management, server provisioning, and server management across heterogeneous storage and server platforms and virtual machines. In November 2006, the company expanded Server Foundation with the addition of Veritas Application Director. Application Director helps companies share server resources across applications to server utilization and application availability. Data Protection: The NetBackup solutions are designed to protect, backup, archive, and restore data across various enterprise computing environments — from corporate data centers to remote offices and desktop and laptop computers. Veritas NetBackup PureDisk, announced in April 2006, combines disk-based data protection and data de-duplication technology to enable companies to centrally manage and administer data protection for remote offices. Application Performance Management: These products provide monitoring and reporting of performance management across business production environments, enabling organizations to Service Level Agreements set for applications. The Application Service Dashboard, announced in January 2007, allows IT organizations to customize Symantec i3performance and service-level metrics via a single dashboard, enabling IT staff members to maximize their efficiency in supporting multi-tier business applications. Services The company’s Services segment consists of consultants with technical knowledge, business expertise, and global insight across multi-vendor environments who assist organizations in managing IT risk on an ongoing basis. Services addresses the primary areas of IT risk — security, availability, performance, and compliance. The company provides customers with maintenance and technical support, consulting, education, and business critical services. The company offers primary classes of consulting service include: Symantec Advisory Services, Symantec Solutions Enablement, and Symantec Residency and Operational Services. Symantec Advisory Services: Advisory Services consultants combine technical expertise with a business focus to create plans and strategies. Each area of its expertise has a portfolio of defined services and deliverables, as well as custom offerings. Symantec Solutions Enablement: Solutions Enablement consultants provide organizations with the expertise to optimize and accelerate the benefits of IT infrastructure investments by designing, implementing, and rolling out solutions. Symantec Residency and Operational Services: In December 2006, the company expanded its services to include support for customers’ long-term programs. These consultants offer deployment and migration assistance and management, support IT staffs, and provide continuous on-site technology and business. Acquisitions In December 2006, the company acquired Company-i Limited, a UK-based professional services firm that specialized in addressing associated with operating and managing a data center in the financial services industry. In February 2007, the company acquired 4FrontSecurity, Inc. 4FrontSecurity developed and distributed governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance software that enabled companies to measure and manage business and security assessments of organizational information. In April 2007, the company acquired Altiris, Inc., a provider of information technology management software that enables businesses to manage and service network-based endpoints. Agreements In May 2007, the company entered into an agreement to form a joint venture with Huawei Technologies Co., LDT. The joint venture would develop, manufacture, market and support security and storage appliances to global telecommunications carriers and enterprise customers. Customers The company's solutions are used worldwide by individual and enterprise customers in various industries, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as various governmental entities. The company's distributors are Ingram Micro, Inc.; and Tech Data Product Management, Inc. The company sells its products through authorized distributors in approximately 40 countries throughout the world. Consumer Products: The company sells its consumer products to individuals and home offices globally through a multi-tiered network of distribution partners. Its products are available to customers through channels that include distributors, retailers, direct marketers, Internet-based resellers, OEMs, system builders, educational institutions, and ISPs. The company sells annual content update subscriptions directly to end-users primarily through the Internet. The company also sells its products and product upgrades in conjunction with channel partners through direct mail/email and through the Internet. Enterprise Solutions: The company sells and markets its products and related services to enterprise customers both directly and through various indirect sales channels, which include value-added resellers (VARs), large account resellers (LARs), distributors, system integrators (Sis), and OEMs. The company's enterprise customers include global corporations, small and medium-sized businesses, and government agencies around the world. Competition Consumer Products: The company's primary competitors in the Consumer Products segment are McAfee, Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; and Trend Micro, Inc. Security and Data Management: The company's primary competitors in the security market are McAfee; Trend Micro; Cisco Systems, Inc.; and Microsoft. The company's primary competitors in the data protection business are International Business Machines Corporation (IBM); CA, Inc.; EMC Corporation; CommVault Systems, Inc.; and Microsoft. In the managed security services business, the company's primary competitors are VeriSign, Inc.; and IBM. Data Center Management: In the areas of storage management, application management and server management, the company's primary competitors are EMC; IBM; Hewlett-Packard Company; Sun Microsystems, Inc.; Oracle Corporation; and Microsoft. Services: The company’s primary competitors in the services segment are EMC, HP, IBM, and regional specialized consulting firms. History Symantec Corporation was founded in 1982. |
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