Symantec
| Type | Public (NASDAQ: SYMC) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software Security software |
| Founded | Sunnyvale, California, U.S. (March 1, 1982) |
| Founder(s) | Gary Hendrix Denis Coleman Gordon Eubanks |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, U.S. |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | John W. Thompson, Chairman Enrique T. Salem, CEO James Beer, CFO Mark Bregman, CTO David Thompson, CIO Greg Hughes, CSO |
| Products | Norton AntiVirus Norton 360 Norton Internet Security Symantec Endpoint Protection Enterprise Vault Veritas Cluster Server Altiris Client Management Suite Veritas Storage Foundation Brightmail Gateway Symantec Data Loss Prevention Symantec Ghost NetBackup BackupExec Symantec Control Compliance Suite Symantec Critical System Protection |
| Revenue | USD 6.2 billion (2009),  5% from 2008[1] |
| Operating income | USD -6.473 billion (2009)  1080% from 2008[1] |
| Net income | USD -6.728 billion (2009) 1551% from 2008[1] |
| Total assets | USD 10.645 billion at 2009-04-03 41% from 2008[1] |
| Total equity | USD 3.947 billion at 2009-04-03 64% from 2008[1] |
| Employees | 18,500 (2010) |
| Divisions | List of mergers and acquisitions by Symantec |
| Website | Symantec.com |
Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) is the largest maker of personal computer security software. Founded in 1982 by Gary Hendrix with a National Science Foundation grant, Symantec was originally focused on artificial intelligence-related projects, including a database program. Hendrix hired several Stanford University natural language processing researchers as the company's first employees, among them Barry Greenstein (professional poker player and developer of Q&A). In 1984 Symantec was acquired by another, even smaller computer software startup company, C&E Software, founded by Denis Coleman and Gordon Eubanks and headed by Eubanks. The merged company retained the name Symantec, and Eubanks became its chief executive officer. Its first product, Q&A, was released in 1985. Q&A provided database management and bundled a word processor. In August 1990, Symantec purchased Peter Norton Computing, a developer of various applications for DOS. Symantec's consumer antivirus and data management utilities are still marketed under Peter Norton's name.
Symantec has been criticized for many ethical violations, mainly in its India support branch, whereby support technicians would tell customers inquiring about certain issues that their systems were infected and therefore needed technicians to remove it remotely for a fee of 99 euros, and refuse to refund when, as in almost all cases, their systems were clean[2].
Contents |
History
Foundation
At one time Symantec was also known for its development tools, particularly the THINK Pascal, THINK C, Symantec C++, and Visual Cafe packages that were popular on the Macintosh and IBM PC compatible platforms; they exited this business in the late-1990s as competitors such as Metrowerks, Microsoft, and Borland gained significant market share.
In 1985, Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr., then president and CEO of Symantec Corporation and Tom Byers and Ted Schlein, formed Turner Hall Publishing, a division of Symantec devoted to publishing third-party software[3][4]. Turner Hall Publishing's first offering was Note-It, a notation utility addin for Lotus 1-2-3[5][6]. Its second, also a 1-2-3 addin was SQZ! a compression utility developed by Synex Systems[7]. The popularity of these products created the cash flow that allowed the 1990s acquisitions Symantec grew from to happen.[8]
Norton products
Symantec's consumer division, Norton, accounts for about one third of the company's revenue. The 2009 line-up includes Norton 360, Norton AntiVirus (for Windows and Mac), Norton Internet Security (for Windows and Mac), Norton SystemWorks (which now contains Norton Utilities), Norton Save & Restore, Norton Ghost, Norton pcAnywhere, Norton Smartphone Security, Norton Partition Magic, Norton Online Backup, and OnlineFamily.Norton.
The Symantec Security Response organization (formerly Symantec Antivirus Research Center) is one of the foremost antivirus and computer security research groups in the industry with over 400 full-time employees.
Enterprise software
Approximately two-thirds of the company's revenue is derived from software designed for companies and large organizations—i.e., enterprise software.
Symantec substantially grew its enterprise business when it acquired VERITAS Software.
Mergers and Acquisitions
- Veritas acquisition
- On December 16, 2004, Veritas and Symantec announced their plans for a merger. With Veritas valued at $13.5 billion, it was the largest software industry merger to date. Symantec's shareholders voted to approve the merger on June 24, 2005; the deal closed successfully on July 2, 2005. July 5, 2005 was the first day of business for U.S. offices of the new, combined software company. As a result of this merger, Symantec includes storage and availability related products in its portfolio namely Veritas File System (VxFS), Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM), Veritas Volume Replicator (VVR) and Veritas Cluster Server (VCS), NetBackup (NBU), Backup Exec (BE), Enterprise Vault (EV).
- Sygate acquisition
- On August 16, 2005, Symantec acquired Sygate [9] a security software firm with about 200 staff, based in Fremont, California. As of November 30, 2005 all Sygate personal firewall products were discontinued by Symantec and now appears to be part of Symantec's Norton range called [n Personal Firewall]] (discontinued and merged into Norton-brand line of software).
- Altiris acquisition
- On January 29, 2007, Symantec announced plans to acquire Altiris and on April 6, 2007 the acquisition was completed. Altiris specializes in service-oriented management software which allows organizations to manage IT assets. They also provide software for web services, security, and systems management products. Established in 1998, Altiris is headquartered in Lindon, Utah, United States.
- Vector Capital sellout
- On January 17, 2008, Symantec announced [10] that they were spinning off the Application Performance Management (Precise Software Solutions) business to Vector Capital. Upon closing of the transaction, Precise Software Solutions will take over all development, product management, marketing and sales for the APM business. To ensure a smooth transition for customers and the new company overall, Symantec will continue to support the APM business post closing via a transition services agreement. Additionally, Symantec and Vector have signed an agreement allowing Symantec to continue to sell APM software and support to its customers. Further, Symantec will continue to honor the terms and conditions of its support commitments to its customers, and will leverage the APM personnel transferred over to Precise Software Solutions to ensure continuity of support. This business unit contains all the i3 products.
- MessageLabs acquisition
- On October 9, 2008, Symantec announced its intent to acquire Gloucester based MessageLabs (a 2007 spin-off from parent company Star Internet) to boost its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business. The acquisition closed on November 17, 2008.
- PGP and Guardian Edge Acquisition
- On April 29, 2010, Symantec announced its intent to acquire PGP and Guardian Edge. The acquisitions provide access to established encryption, key managment and technologies for Symantec's customers. The acquisition closed on June 4, 2010
- VeriSign Security Acquisition
- On May 19th, 2010, Symantec signed a definitive agreement to acquire VeriSign’s security business, which includes the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Services, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Services, the VeriSign Trust Services and the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service. The combination of VeriSign’s security products, services and recognition as the most trusted brand online and Symantec’s leading security solutions and widespread distribution will enable Symantec to deliver on its vision of a world where people have simple and secure access to their information from anywhere.
See also
- List of mergers and acquisitions by Symantec
- Huawei Symantec - Joint Venture of Huawei and Symantec
- Gordon Eubanks (former CEO)
- PC Tools (company)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Financial Tables". Symantec Investor Relations. http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:SYMC&fstype=ii. Retrieved 2009-01-23.
- ↑ Consumer complaints about Norton
- ↑ Gordon Eubanks Oral History, COMPUTERWORLD HONORS PROGRAM, Daniel S. Morrow, November 8, 2000, pages 17-18
- ↑ RasterOps-Truevison adds two industry leaders to board of directors; company names Walter W., Business Wire, Tuesday, March 21 1995
- ↑ Answers.com: Symantec
- ↑ Company Histories: Symantec Corporation, Funding Universe
- ↑ Hendren and Associates
- ↑ Gordon Eubanks Oral History, COMPUTERWORLD HONORS PROGRAM, Daniel S. Morrow, November 8, 2000, pages 18-19
- ↑ Symantec Completes Sygate Acquisition
- ↑ Symantec to Sell Application Performance Management Business to Vector Capital
External links
- Symantec Official Website
- History of Symantec
- www.barrygreenstein.com with an article from the L.A. Times on Barry Greenstein, his poker career and his work at Symantec as employee number five.
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