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Symantec To Separate Into Two Companies

Posted by samzenpus on from the split-up dept.

wiredmikey writes Symantec announced plans on Thursday to split into two separate, publicly traded companies – one focused on security, the other focused on information management. The company's security business generated $4.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2014 while its information management business meanwhile hit revenues of $2.5 billion. "As the security and storage industries continue to change at an accelerating pace, Symantec's security and IM businesses each face unique market opportunities and challenges," Symantec CEO Michael A. Brown, who officially took over as CEO last month, said in a statement. Garrett Bekker, senior analyst with 451 Research, called the decision "long overdue." "The company had become too big to manage, and they were having trouble keeping up with the pace of innovation in many areas of security," he told SecurityWeek. "The synergies between storage and security never really emerged, in part because in many firms, particularly large enterprises, they are managed by different internal teams."

12 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. HP, Symantec...getting closer and closer... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm still waiting for one company to split into Micro and Soft.

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    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:HP, Symantec...getting closer and closer... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm waiting for Comcast to split into Hades and Gehenna.

  2. The return of.. by Dynamoo · · Score: 2

    ..Peter Norton Computing?

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    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
    1. Re:The return of.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because software like Norton Antivirus have sullied it, Peter Norton has changed his name to something less offensive. He's now known as Peter Hitler.

  3. This is about stock price, the rest is bullshit by gelfling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Two smaller companies don't have to grow revenues as much to meet the EPS thresholds that institutional investors demand. They ONLY other option was to become IBM and that's to simply run around BUYING other companies.

  4. Excuse me... by Torp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is Symantec doing anything useful?
    I think the last useful version of Norton Utilities was 6.0, which was before the Symantec buyout?
    Now they're just marketing fear...

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    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
    1. Re:Excuse me... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      They're a great selling point for me. A former boss of mine always said "We don't say anything negative about our competitors. We say 'Symantec software comes in really great looking boxes'".

      We need Symantec in the biz. It's usually easy to sell when you compare your product with something from "industry standard Symantec" and you can easily show how you surpass them.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Veritas rewind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Call the information management side "Veritas" and apologize to the long time NetBackup customers for the Symantec years. They are lucky that some of us didn't jump ship after NBU was absorbed. Support, community and quality all took a hit.

  6. split into Micro and Soft. by wiredog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That would have been an excellent idea about 10-15 years ago. Lots of people thought that splitting it into MS Applications (Word, Excel, etc.) and MS OS (Windows, etc.) would have been a great thing all the way around.

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    Best Slashdot Co
  7. What will the new divisions be like? by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One that doesn't know how to make antivirus and one that doesn't have a clue about firewalls?

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. Re:Wow by Hadlock · · Score: 2

    They own PGP. Which is a major part of the backbone of their security segment.

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    moox. for a new generation.
  9. Re:Do people even use antivirus anymore? by chuckugly · · Score: 2

    Interesting theory, however Norton in particular is always near the top when it comes to having minimal impact on system performance in actual head to head testing. Again, believe as your anecdotes dictate.