Symantec
Encyclopedia
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software
for computer
s. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California
, and is a Fortune 500
company and a member of the S&P 500
stock market index.
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 the word processor component within Q&A).
In 1984 it became clear that the advanced natural language and database system that Symantec had developed could not be ported from DEC minicomputers to the PC. This left Symantec without a product, but with expertise in natural language database query systems and technology. As a result, later in 1984 Symantec was acquired by another, smaller computer software startup company, C&E Software, founded by Denis Coleman and Gordon Eubanks
and headed by Eubanks. C&E Software was in the process of developing an integrated file management and word processing program.
The merged company retained the name Symantec, and Eubanks became its chairman, Vern Raburn, the former CEO of the original Symantec, remained as CEO of the combined company. Soon after the merger, Eubanks and Raburn recruited Rod Turner into Symantec as its executive vice president for marketing, sales, product management and international business. Turner had been in interviews and discussions with C&E Software in early 1984 about becoming the president of C&E. These discussions had ended when the two companies merged. The new Symantec combined the file management and word processing functionality that C&E had planned, and added an advanced Natural Language query system (architected by Gary Hendrix and engineered by Dan Gordon)that set new standards for ease of database query and report generation. The natural language system was named "The Intelligent Assistant". Turner chose the name of Q&A for Symantec's flagship product, in large part because the name lent itself to use in a short, easily merchandised logo. Brett Walter designed the user interface of Q&A (Brett Walter, Director of Product Management), which set new standards for logical and easy to use design. Q&A was released in November 1985.
During 1986, Vern Raburn and Gordon Eubanks swapped roles, and Eubanks became CEO and president of Symantec, while Raburn became its chairman. Subsequent to this change, Raburn had little involvement with Symantec, and in a few years time, Eubanks added the Chairmanship to his other roles.
After a slow start for sales of Q&A in the fall of 1985 and spring of 1986, Turner signed up a new advertising agency called Elliot Dickens, embarked on an aggressive new advertising campaign, and came up with the "Six Pack Program" in which all Symantec employees, regardless of role, went on the road, training and selling dealer sales staff nationwide in the USA. Turner named it Six Pack because employees were to work six days a week, see six dealerships per day, train six sales representatives per store and stay with friends free or at Motel 6
. Simultaneously, a promotion was run jointly with SofSell (which was Symantec's exclusive wholesale distributor in the US for the first year that Q&A was on the market). This promotion was very successful in encouraging dealers to try Q&A.
During this time, Symantec was advised by Jim Lally and John Doerr - both were board members of Symantec at that stage - (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers) that if Symantec would cut its expenses and grow revenues enough to achieve cash flow break-even, then KPCB would back the company in raising more venture capital. To accomplish this, the management team worked out a salary reduction schedule where the chairman and the CEO would take zero pay, all vice presidents would take a 50% pay cut, and all other employees' pay was cut by 15%. Two employees were laid off. Eubanks also negotiated a sizable rent reduction on the office space the company had leased in the days of the original Symantec. These expense reductions, combined with strong international sales of Q&A, enabled the company to attain break-even. Because all team members were sharing in the suffering of reduced income, and because of the unifying affects of the Six Pack Program, Symantec's morale during this period was very high - the more so when one considers that the company had a very uncertain future at this time.
The significantly increased traction for Q&A which resulted from this re-launch grew Symantec's revenues substantially, along with early success for Q&A in international markets (uniquely a German version was shipped three weeks after the US version, and it was the first software in the world that supported German Natural Language) following Turner's having placed emphasis on establishing international sales distribution and multiple language versions of Q&A from initial shipment.
In 1985, Rod Turner negotiated the publishing agreement with David Whitney for Symantec's second product, which Turner named NoteIt (an annotation utility for Lotus 1-2-3). It was evident to Turner that NoteIt would confuse the dealer channel if it was launched under the Symantec name, because Symantec had built up interest by that stage in Q&A (but not yet shipped it), and because the low price point for the utility would not be initially attractive to the dealer channel until demand had been built up. Turner felt that the product should be marketed under a unique brand name. Turner and Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.
, then chairman of Symantec Corporation, agreed to form a new division of Symantec, and Eubanks delegated the choice of name to Turner. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, to be a new division of Symantec devoted to publishing third-party software and hardware. The objective of the division was to diversify revenues and accelerate the growth of Symantec. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, using his last name and that of Dottie Hall (Director of Marketing Communications) in order to convey the sense of a stable, long established, company. Turner Hall Publishing's first offering was Note-It, a notation utility add-in for Lotus 1-2-3, which was developed by David Whitney, and licensed to Symantec. Its second product was the Turner Hall Card, which was a 256k RAM, half slot memory card, initially made to inexpensively increase the available memory for Symantec's then flagship product, Q&A. The Turner Hall division also marketed the card as a standalone product. Turner Hall's third product, also a 1-2-3 add-in was SQZ! a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet compression utility developed by Chris Graham Synex Systems
. In the summer of 1986 Eubanks and Turner recruited Tom Byers from Digital Research, to expand the Turner Hall Publishing product family and lead the Turner Hall effort.
By the winter of 1986–87, the Turner Hall Publishing division had achieved success with NoteIt, the Turner Hall Card, and SQZ!.
The popularity of these products, while contributing a relatively small portion of revenues to Symantec, conveyed the impression that Symantec was already a diversified company, and indeed, many industry participants were under the impression that Symantec had acquired Turner Hall Publishing. In 1987, Byers recruited Ted Schlein into the Turner Hall Product Group to assist in building the product family and in marketing.
Revenues from Q&A, and from Symantec's early launch into the international marketplace, combined with Turner Hall Publishing, generated the market presence and scale that enabled Symantec to make its first merger/acquisition, in February 1987, that of BreakThrough Software, maker of the TimeLine project management software for DOS. Because this was the first time that Symantec had acquired a business that had revenues, inventory, and customers, Eubanks chose to change nothing at BreakThrough Software for six months, and the actual merger logistics started in the summer of 1987, with Turner being appointed by Eubanks as general manager of the TimeLine business unit, Turner was made responsible for the successful integration of the company into Symantec and ongoing growth of the business, with P&L. There was a heavy emphasis placed on making the minimum disruption by Eubanks and Turner.
Soon after the acquisition of TimeLine/Breakthrough Software, Eubanks reorganized Symantec, structuring the company around product-centric groups, each having its own development, quality assurance, technical support and product marketing functions, and a General Manager with profit and loss responsibility. Sales, finance and operations were centralized functions that were shared. This structure lent itself well to Symantec's further growth through mergers and acquisitions. Eubanks made Turner general manager of the new TimeLine Product Group, and simultaneously of the Q&A Product Group, and made Tom Byers general manager of the Turner Hall Product Group. Turner continued to build and lead the company's international business and marketing for the whole company.
At the TimeLine Product Group, Turner drove strong marketing, promotion and sales programs in order to accelerate momentum. By 1989 this merger was very successful - product group morale was high, TimeLine development continued apace, and the increased sales and marketing efforts applied built the TimeLine into the clear market lead in PC project management software on DOS. Both the Q&A and TimeLine product groups were healthily profitable. The profit stream and merger success set the stage for subsequent merger and acquisition activity by the company, and indeed funded the losses of some of the product groups that were subsequently acquired. In 1989, Eubanks hired John Laing as VP worldwide sales, and Turner transferred the international division to Laing. Eubanks also recruited Bob Dykes to be Exec VP for operations and finance, in preparation for the upcoming IPO. In July 1989 Symantec had its IPO.
In May 1990 Symantec announced its intent to merge with and acquire Peter Norton Computing
, a developer of various utilities for DOS
. Turner was appointed as product group manager for the Norton business, and made responsible for the merger, with P&L responsibility. Ted Schlein was made product group manager for the Q&A business.
The Peter Norton group merger logistical effort began immediately while the companies sought approval for the merger, and in August 1990, Symantec concluded the purchase—by this time the combination of the companies was already complete. Symantec's consumer antivirus and data management utilities are still marketed under the Norton name. At the time of the merger, Symantec had built upon its Turner Hall Publishing presence in the utility market, by introducing Symantec Antivirus for the Macintosh (SAM), and Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh (SUM). These two products were already market leaders on the MAC, and this success made the Norton merger more strategic. Symantec had already begun development of a DOS based antivirus program one year before the merger with Norton. The management team had decided to enter the antivirus market in part because it was felt that the antivirus market entailed a great deal of ongoing work to stay ahead of new viruses. The team felt that Microsoft would be unlikely to find this effort attractive, which would lengthen the viability of the market for Symantec. Turner decided to use the Norton name for obvious reasons, on what became the "Norton Antivirus", which Turner and the Norton team launched in 1991. At the time of the merger, Norton revenues were approximately 20 to 25% of the combined entity. By 1993, while being led by Turner, Norton product group revenues had grown to be approximately 82% of Symantec corp's total.
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. These product lines resulted from acquisitions made by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These businesses and the Living Videotext acquisition were consistently unprofitable for Symantec, and these losses diverted expenditures away from both the Q&A for Windows and the TimeLine for Windows development efforts during the critical period from 1988 through 1992. Symantec exited this business in the late-1990s as competitors such as Metrowerks
, Microsoft
, and Borland
gained significant market share.
, 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.
Symantec substantially grew its enterprise business when it acquired VERITAS Software.
The Flagship enterprise security software are End Point Security, Small Business Protection suite for 5 users and up.
End Point security has continuous update capability as well user defined update schedule. Furthermore it has proactive intrusion prevention capability, malware, spam protection and content filtering. Latest version of Symantec Endpoint Protection
is 12.1.
Small business Protection suite is tailored for small business with minimal to almost no IT staff at affordable price levels. The package includes End Point security, as well as system backup and recovery. The system backup and recovery complements Ghost solution suite. In small business, the system backup and recovery works better for PC and system protection and Ghost from minimal technical expertise point of view. The suite also has some Exchange protection features. The protection suite 4 has a tool to remove malware from infected PC. Reference: Symantec product specification
As of September 25, 2011 the latest released version of Small Business protection suite is 4. There are many fraudulent email claiming free upgrade to version 4.
Symantec is also monitoring the Internet with the Symantec Global Intelligence Network, Deepsight, and publish an annual free report Internet Security Threat Report. This continuous threats knowledge is permitting Symantec to propose managed security services, from their Security Operations Center.
Symantec propose Enterprises to:
And is currently extending to cover Mobile and virtualization
(with cloud computing
evolution).
In 1993 Symantec acquired ACT! from Contact Software International. Symantec sold ACT! to SalesLogix in 1999. At the time it was the world's most popular CRM application for Windows and Macintosh.
Veritas acquisition
Sygate acquisition
Altiris acquisition
Application Performance Management sellout
Acquisition of PC Tools
MessageLabs acquisition
PGP and Guardian Edge Acquisition
VeriSign Security Acquisition
ClearWell Systems Acquisition
Security software
Security software is a generic term referring to any computer program or library whose purpose is to secure a computer system or computer network. Types of security software include:* Antivirus software* Anti keylogger* Cryptographic software...
for computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, and is a Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
company and a member of the S&P 500
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...
stock market index.
History
Founded in 1982 by Gary HendrixGary Hendrix
Gary Hendrix is a natural language analyst who founded Symantec Corporation, an international corporation which sells computer software, particularly in the fields of information management and antivirus software.-Personal life:...
with a National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
grant, Symantec was originally focused on artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
-related projects, including a database program. Hendrix hired several Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
natural language processing
Natural language processing
Natural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages; it began as a branch of artificial intelligence....
researchers as the company's first employees, among them Barry Greenstein
Barry Greenstein
Barry Greenstein is a professional poker player. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on the World Poker Tour. Greenstein donates his profit from tournament winnings to charities, primarily Children, Incorporated, earning him the nickname "the...
(professional poker player and developer of the word processor component within Q&A).
In 1984 it became clear that the advanced natural language and database system that Symantec had developed could not be ported from DEC minicomputers to the PC. This left Symantec without a product, but with expertise in natural language database query systems and technology. As a result, later in 1984 Symantec was acquired by another, smaller computer software startup company, C&E Software, founded by Denis Coleman and Gordon Eubanks
Gordon Eubanks
Gordon Eubanks is a microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research. Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University. Dr. Kildall was his graduate thesis advisor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California...
and headed by Eubanks. C&E Software was in the process of developing an integrated file management and word processing program.
The merged company retained the name Symantec, and Eubanks became its chairman, Vern Raburn, the former CEO of the original Symantec, remained as CEO of the combined company. Soon after the merger, Eubanks and Raburn recruited Rod Turner into Symantec as its executive vice president for marketing, sales, product management and international business. Turner had been in interviews and discussions with C&E Software in early 1984 about becoming the president of C&E. These discussions had ended when the two companies merged. The new Symantec combined the file management and word processing functionality that C&E had planned, and added an advanced Natural Language query system (architected by Gary Hendrix and engineered by Dan Gordon)that set new standards for ease of database query and report generation. The natural language system was named "The Intelligent Assistant". Turner chose the name of Q&A for Symantec's flagship product, in large part because the name lent itself to use in a short, easily merchandised logo. Brett Walter designed the user interface of Q&A (Brett Walter, Director of Product Management), which set new standards for logical and easy to use design. Q&A was released in November 1985.
During 1986, Vern Raburn and Gordon Eubanks swapped roles, and Eubanks became CEO and president of Symantec, while Raburn became its chairman. Subsequent to this change, Raburn had little involvement with Symantec, and in a few years time, Eubanks added the Chairmanship to his other roles.
After a slow start for sales of Q&A in the fall of 1985 and spring of 1986, Turner signed up a new advertising agency called Elliot Dickens, embarked on an aggressive new advertising campaign, and came up with the "Six Pack Program" in which all Symantec employees, regardless of role, went on the road, training and selling dealer sales staff nationwide in the USA. Turner named it Six Pack because employees were to work six days a week, see six dealerships per day, train six sales representatives per store and stay with friends free or at Motel 6
Motel 6
Motel 6 is a major chain of budget motels with more than 1,000 locations in the United States and Canada, and is the largest owned and operated hotel chain in North America. It is owned and operated by Accor Hotels.-History:...
. Simultaneously, a promotion was run jointly with SofSell (which was Symantec's exclusive wholesale distributor in the US for the first year that Q&A was on the market). This promotion was very successful in encouraging dealers to try Q&A.
During this time, Symantec was advised by Jim Lally and John Doerr - both were board members of Symantec at that stage - (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers) that if Symantec would cut its expenses and grow revenues enough to achieve cash flow break-even, then KPCB would back the company in raising more venture capital. To accomplish this, the management team worked out a salary reduction schedule where the chairman and the CEO would take zero pay, all vice presidents would take a 50% pay cut, and all other employees' pay was cut by 15%. Two employees were laid off. Eubanks also negotiated a sizable rent reduction on the office space the company had leased in the days of the original Symantec. These expense reductions, combined with strong international sales of Q&A, enabled the company to attain break-even. Because all team members were sharing in the suffering of reduced income, and because of the unifying affects of the Six Pack Program, Symantec's morale during this period was very high - the more so when one considers that the company had a very uncertain future at this time.
The significantly increased traction for Q&A which resulted from this re-launch grew Symantec's revenues substantially, along with early success for Q&A in international markets (uniquely a German version was shipped three weeks after the US version, and it was the first software in the world that supported German Natural Language) following Turner's having placed emphasis on establishing international sales distribution and multiple language versions of Q&A from initial shipment.
In 1985, Rod Turner negotiated the publishing agreement with David Whitney for Symantec's second product, which Turner named NoteIt (an annotation utility for Lotus 1-2-3). It was evident to Turner that NoteIt would confuse the dealer channel if it was launched under the Symantec name, because Symantec had built up interest by that stage in Q&A (but not yet shipped it), and because the low price point for the utility would not be initially attractive to the dealer channel until demand had been built up. Turner felt that the product should be marketed under a unique brand name. Turner and Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.
Gordon Eubanks
Gordon Eubanks is a microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research. Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University. Dr. Kildall was his graduate thesis advisor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California...
, then chairman of Symantec Corporation, agreed to form a new division of Symantec, and Eubanks delegated the choice of name to Turner. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, to be a new division of Symantec devoted to publishing third-party software and hardware. The objective of the division was to diversify revenues and accelerate the growth of Symantec. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, using his last name and that of Dottie Hall (Director of Marketing Communications) in order to convey the sense of a stable, long established, company. Turner Hall Publishing's first offering was Note-It, a notation utility add-in for Lotus 1-2-3, which was developed by David Whitney, and licensed to Symantec. Its second product was the Turner Hall Card, which was a 256k RAM, half slot memory card, initially made to inexpensively increase the available memory for Symantec's then flagship product, Q&A. The Turner Hall division also marketed the card as a standalone product. Turner Hall's third product, also a 1-2-3 add-in was SQZ! a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet compression utility developed by Chris Graham Synex Systems
Synex Systems Corporation
Synex Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of was formed in 1983 in an effort to develop software for the microcomputer market and was run by Synex International Vice President Murray Hendren until 1992. In 2002, Synex Systems was acquired by privately owned Lasata Software of Perth, Australia. In...
. In the summer of 1986 Eubanks and Turner recruited Tom Byers from Digital Research, to expand the Turner Hall Publishing product family and lead the Turner Hall effort.
By the winter of 1986–87, the Turner Hall Publishing division had achieved success with NoteIt, the Turner Hall Card, and SQZ!.
The popularity of these products, while contributing a relatively small portion of revenues to Symantec, conveyed the impression that Symantec was already a diversified company, and indeed, many industry participants were under the impression that Symantec had acquired Turner Hall Publishing. In 1987, Byers recruited Ted Schlein into the Turner Hall Product Group to assist in building the product family and in marketing.
Revenues from Q&A, and from Symantec's early launch into the international marketplace, combined with Turner Hall Publishing, generated the market presence and scale that enabled Symantec to make its first merger/acquisition, in February 1987, that of BreakThrough Software, maker of the TimeLine project management software for DOS. Because this was the first time that Symantec had acquired a business that had revenues, inventory, and customers, Eubanks chose to change nothing at BreakThrough Software for six months, and the actual merger logistics started in the summer of 1987, with Turner being appointed by Eubanks as general manager of the TimeLine business unit, Turner was made responsible for the successful integration of the company into Symantec and ongoing growth of the business, with P&L. There was a heavy emphasis placed on making the minimum disruption by Eubanks and Turner.
Soon after the acquisition of TimeLine/Breakthrough Software, Eubanks reorganized Symantec, structuring the company around product-centric groups, each having its own development, quality assurance, technical support and product marketing functions, and a General Manager with profit and loss responsibility. Sales, finance and operations were centralized functions that were shared. This structure lent itself well to Symantec's further growth through mergers and acquisitions. Eubanks made Turner general manager of the new TimeLine Product Group, and simultaneously of the Q&A Product Group, and made Tom Byers general manager of the Turner Hall Product Group. Turner continued to build and lead the company's international business and marketing for the whole company.
At the TimeLine Product Group, Turner drove strong marketing, promotion and sales programs in order to accelerate momentum. By 1989 this merger was very successful - product group morale was high, TimeLine development continued apace, and the increased sales and marketing efforts applied built the TimeLine into the clear market lead in PC project management software on DOS. Both the Q&A and TimeLine product groups were healthily profitable. The profit stream and merger success set the stage for subsequent merger and acquisition activity by the company, and indeed funded the losses of some of the product groups that were subsequently acquired. In 1989, Eubanks hired John Laing as VP worldwide sales, and Turner transferred the international division to Laing. Eubanks also recruited Bob Dykes to be Exec VP for operations and finance, in preparation for the upcoming IPO. In July 1989 Symantec had its IPO.
In May 1990 Symantec announced its intent to merge with and acquire Peter Norton Computing
Peter Norton Computing
Peter Norton Computing, Inc., was a software company founded by Peter Norton. The first and most notable software package it produced is the Norton Utilities. Another very popular software was Norton Commander, especially the DOS version. In 1990, the company was acquired by Symantec. The...
, a developer of various utilities for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
. Turner was appointed as product group manager for the Norton business, and made responsible for the merger, with P&L responsibility. Ted Schlein was made product group manager for the Q&A business.
The Peter Norton group merger logistical effort began immediately while the companies sought approval for the merger, and in August 1990, Symantec concluded the purchase—by this time the combination of the companies was already complete. Symantec's consumer antivirus and data management utilities are still marketed under the Norton name. At the time of the merger, Symantec had built upon its Turner Hall Publishing presence in the utility market, by introducing Symantec Antivirus for the Macintosh (SAM), and Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh (SUM). These two products were already market leaders on the MAC, and this success made the Norton merger more strategic. Symantec had already begun development of a DOS based antivirus program one year before the merger with Norton. The management team had decided to enter the antivirus market in part because it was felt that the antivirus market entailed a great deal of ongoing work to stay ahead of new viruses. The team felt that Microsoft would be unlikely to find this effort attractive, which would lengthen the viability of the market for Symantec. Turner decided to use the Norton name for obvious reasons, on what became the "Norton Antivirus", which Turner and the Norton team launched in 1991. At the time of the merger, Norton revenues were approximately 20 to 25% of the combined entity. By 1993, while being led by Turner, Norton product group revenues had grown to be approximately 82% of Symantec corp's total.
At one time Symantec was also known for its development tools, particularly the THINK Pascal, THINK C
THINK C
THINK C was an extension of ANSI C for Mac OS developed by THINK Technologies; although named Lightspeed C in the original mid-1986 release, it was later renamed THINK C. THINK Technologies was later acquired by Symantec Corporation and the product continued to be developed by the original author,...
, Symantec C++, and Visual Cafe
Visual Cafe
Visual Café was an integrated development environment for the Java programming language. It included a GUI builder and was marketed as a series of editions: "Standard Edition," "Enterprise Suite," "Expert Edition," "Professional Edition," and "Development Edition." The "Enterprise Suite" was...
packages that were popular on the Macintosh and IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
platforms. These product lines resulted from acquisitions made by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These businesses and the Living Videotext acquisition were consistently unprofitable for Symantec, and these losses diverted expenditures away from both the Q&A for Windows and the TimeLine for Windows development efforts during the critical period from 1988 through 1992. Symantec exited this business in the late-1990s as competitors such as Metrowerks
Metrowerks
Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product, CodeWarrior, comprised an IDE, compilers, linkers, debuggers, libraries, and related tools...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, and Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
gained significant market share.
Norton products
The 2009 line-up included Norton 360Norton 360
Norton 360, developed by Symantec, is marketed as an "all-in-one" computer security suite. The package includes an antivirus, a personal firewall, a phishing protection program and a backup program...
, Norton AntiVirus
Norton AntiVirus
Norton AntiVirus, developed and distributed by Symantec Corporation, provides malware prevention and removal during a subscription period. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include e-mail spam filtering and phishing protection.Symantec distributes the product as...
(for Windows and Mac), Norton Internet Security
Norton Internet Security
Norton Internet Security, developed by Symantec Corporation, provides malware prevention and removal during subscription period and uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include a software firewall, e-mail spam filtering, and phishing protection.Symantec distributes...
(for Windows and Mac), Norton SystemWorks
Norton SystemWorks
Norton SystemWorks is a discontinued system utility suite by Symantec. It expanded the tools found in Norton Utilities, and added other Symantec software titles, primarily anti-virus, and later backup software for the high-end versions.-Norton NT Tools:...
(which now contains Norton Utilities
Norton Utilities
Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain the computer. The current version 15 of Norton Utilities Premier Edition for Windows XP/Vista/7 was released December 27, 2010....
), Norton Save & Restore, Norton Ghost, Norton pcAnywhere, Norton Smartphone Security, Norton Partition Magic, Norton Online Backup
Remote backup service
A remote, online, or managed backup service is a service that provides users with a system for the backup and storage of computer files. Online backup providers are companies that provide this type of service to end users ....
, and OnlineFamily.Norton
OnlineFamily.Norton
OnlineFamily.Norton is a cloud-based parental control service. Online Family is aimed at "fostering communication" involving parents and their children's online activities...
.
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.
The Flagship enterprise security software are End Point Security, Small Business Protection suite for 5 users and up.
End Point security has continuous update capability as well user defined update schedule. Furthermore it has proactive intrusion prevention capability, malware, spam protection and content filtering. Latest version of Symantec Endpoint Protection
Symantec Endpoint Protection
Symantec Endpoint Protection, developed by Symantec Corporation, is an antivirus and personal firewall product leveled at centrally managed corporate environments security for servers and workstations.-Version history:...
is 12.1.
Small business Protection suite is tailored for small business with minimal to almost no IT staff at affordable price levels. The package includes End Point security, as well as system backup and recovery. The system backup and recovery complements Ghost solution suite. In small business, the system backup and recovery works better for PC and system protection and Ghost from minimal technical expertise point of view. The suite also has some Exchange protection features. The protection suite 4 has a tool to remove malware from infected PC. Reference: Symantec product specification
As of September 25, 2011 the latest released version of Small Business protection suite is 4. There are many fraudulent email claiming free upgrade to version 4.
Symantec is also monitoring the Internet with the Symantec Global Intelligence Network, Deepsight, and publish an annual free report Internet Security Threat Report. This continuous threats knowledge is permitting Symantec to propose managed security services, from their Security Operations Center.
Symantec propose Enterprises to:
- Develop and Enforce IT Policies with Control Compliance Suite
- Protect Information with Data Loss Prevention Suite and EncryptionEncryptionIn cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
(alias PGP) - Authenticate Identities with VeriSignVeriSignVerisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code...
Identify and AuthenticationAuthenticationAuthentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity... - Manage Systems with Altiris IT Management Suite
- Protect the Infrastucture with Symantec Protection Suite (including SEPSymantec Endpoint ProtectionSymantec Endpoint Protection, developed by Symantec Corporation, is an antivirus and personal firewall product leveled at centrally managed corporate environments security for servers and workstations.-Version history:...
, ex-SAV: Symantec Antivirus, but also BackupExec from VeritasVeritasIn Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white...
)
And is currently extending to cover Mobile and virtualization
Virtualization
Virtualization, in computing, is the creation of a virtual version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resources....
(with cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
evolution).
Mergers and Acquisitions
ACT! acquisition and saleIn 1993 Symantec acquired ACT! from Contact Software International. Symantec sold ACT! to SalesLogix in 1999. At the time it was the world's most popular CRM application for Windows and Macintosh.
Veritas acquisition
- On December 16, 2004, VeritasVERITAS SoftwareVeritas Software Corp. was an international software company that was founded in 1983 as Tolerant Systems, renamed Veritas Software Corp. in 1989, and merged with Symantec in 2005. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California...
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 SystemVERITAS File SystemThe VERITAS File System, , is an extent-based file system. It was originally developed by VERITAS Software. Through an OEM agreement, VxFS is used as the primary filesystem of the HP-UX operating system...
(VxFS), Veritas Volume ManagerVeritas Volume ManagerThe Veritas Volume Manager, VVM or VxVM is a proprietary logical volume manager from Veritas . It is available for Windows, AIX, Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX. A modified version is bundled with HP-UX as its built-in volume manager...
(VxVM), Veritas Volume Replicator (VVR) and Veritas Cluster ServerVeritas Cluster ServerVeritas Cluster Server is a High-availability cluster software, for Unix, Linux and Microsoft Windows computer systems, created by Veritas Software...
(VCS), NetBackup (NBU), Backup Exec (BE), Enterprise Vault (EV).
Sygate acquisition
- On August 16, 2005, Symantec acquired Sygate a security software firm with about 200 staff, based in FremontFremont, CaliforniaFremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. As of November 30, 2005 all Sygate personal firewall products were discontinued by Symantec and now appear to be part of Symantec's Norton range called Norton Personal FirewallNorton Personal FirewallNorton Personal Firewall, developed by Symantec, is a discontinued personal firewall with ad blocking, program control and privacy protection capabilities....
(discontinued and merged into Norton-brand line of software).
Altiris acquisition
- On January 29, 2007, Symantec announced plans to acquire AltirisAltirisAltiris Inc. is a subsidiary of Symantec specializing 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...
and on April 6, 2007 the acquisition was completed. AltirisAltirisAltiris Inc. is a subsidiary of Symantec specializing 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...
specializes in service-oriented management software which allows organizations to manage ITInformation technologyInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
assets. They also provide software for web services, security, and systems management products. Established in 1998, Altiris is headquartered in Lindon, UtahLindon, UtahLindon is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,070 at the 2010 census.The western sculptor Grant Speed resides in Lindon.-Geography:...
, United States.
Application Performance Management sellout
- On January 17, 2008, Symantec announced that they were spinning off the Application Performance Management business and its i3 product range to Vector Capital. Precise Software Solutions took over development, product management, marketing and sales for the APM business, launching as an independent company on September 17, 2008.
Acquisition of PC Tools
- On August 18, 2008, Symantec announced the signing of an agreement to acquire PC Tools (company)PC Tools (company)PC Tools , formerly known as WinGuides.com, is a software company headquartered in Australia with offices in the USA, UK, Ireland and Ukraine. It develops and distributes security and optimization software for the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms. There are over 200 employees...
such that PC Tools would maintain separate operations. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
MessageLabs acquisition
- On October 9, 2008, Symantec announced its intent to acquire Gloucester based MessageLabsMessageLabsSymantec.cloud, is a major provider of integrated messaging and web security services , with over 19,000 clients ranging from small business to the Fortune 500 located in more than 86 countries and the United Kingdom Parliament...
(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 management 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 acquisition closed on August 9, 2010.
ClearWell Systems Acquisition
- On May 19th, 2011 Symantec announced the acquisition of ClearWell systems for approximatelly $390 million.
- "Symantec has entered into an agreement to acquire privately-held Clearwell Systems, Inc., a recognized leader in the eDiscovery market. Clearwell's eDiscovery solution complements and enhances Symantec’s Enterprise VaultEnterprise VaultSymantec Enterprise Vault is an enterprise file and email archiving program created by Symantec. It is part of the company's "Information Foundation" suite....
eDiscovery capabilities for a more complete end-to-end eDiscovery solution. Symantec’s acquisition of Clearwell brings together the industry’s leading eDiscovery, archiving and backup offerings to provide customers one of the most comprehensive information management solutions available."
See also
- List of mergers and acquisitions by Symantec
- Huawei SymantecHuawei SymantecHuawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. is a developer, producer and supplier of network security, storage and computing solutions. It is headquartered in Chengdu, People's Republic of China. Huawei Symantec is a joint venture between Huawei and Symantec. Huawei owns 51% of the company, while...
– Joint Venture of Huawei and Symantec - Gordon EubanksGordon EubanksGordon Eubanks is a microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research. Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University. Dr. Kildall was his graduate thesis advisor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California...
(former CEO) - PC Tools (company)PC Tools (company)PC Tools , formerly known as WinGuides.com, is a software company headquartered in Australia with offices in the USA, UK, Ireland and Ukraine. It develops and distributes security and optimization software for the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms. There are over 200 employees...
External links
- History of Symantec
- Norton Official Site
- Verisign Official Site
- PCTools Official Site
- 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.