Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) is the largest maker of security software for computers. 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.
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 the word processor component within Q&A). After an extremely exciting start, the company reached a point in 1984 when 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 an excellent team, and a unique advantage 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.[citation needed] Q&A was released in November of 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.
Symantec Corporation (Symantec) is a global provider of security, storage, and systems management solutions that help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. It conducts the business in three geographic regions: Americas, which is comprised of the United States, Canada, and Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific Japan (APJ). It has five operating segments: Consumer, Security and Compliance, Storage and Server Management, Services, and Other. Symantec provides customers with software and services that protect, manage, and control information risks related to security, backup and recovery, storage, compliance, and systems management. It also maintains various distribution and services relationships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Internet service providers (ISPs), and retail and online stores. On January 22, 2010, it acquired Gideon Technologies, Inc. and October 31, 2009, it acquired SoftScan. In August 2010, the Company acquired VeriSign, Inc.'s identity and authentication business, which includes the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Code Signing Certificate Services, the Managed Public Key Infrastructure (MPKI) Services, the VeriSign Trust Seal, the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service and the VIP Fraud Detection Service (FDS).
Consumer
Symantec’s consumer segment provides Internet security and protection solutions, suites and services to individual users and home offices through a dual-brand strategy with Norton and PC Tools. The Norton brand offers security suites, as well as related services, such as online backup, family safety, and personal computer (PC) tune-up across multiple platforms. Its products include Norton 360, Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus, Norton Online Backup, PC Tools Spyware Doctor, and PC Tools Registry Mechanic.
Security and Compliance
Symantec’s security and compliance segment helps the customers standardize, automate, and reduce the costs of day-to-day security activities in order to secure and manage their information. The primary solutions in this segment address the areas, which include Enterprise Security, Systems Management and Symantec Hosted Services (SaaS). The Symantec Protection Suite creates a protected endpoint, messaging, and Web environment that is secure against complex malware, data loss and spam threats, and recovers endpoint data in the event of failure. The Symantec Data Loss Prevention Suite helps companies understand where important information resides and helps ensure the access and movement of information into and out of the company. The Symantec Control Compliance Suite allows businesses to prioritize risks, define and assess global information technology (IT) policies, and remediate identified deficiencies.
The Altiris IT Management Suite provides client, server and asset management with service desk and automation capabilities. Symantec Hosted Services, the SaaS offerings, enable customers to increase their messaging and Web protection by blocking e-mail, Web and instant messaging (IM) threats before they reach the network. The SaaS security solutions simplify global management through use of a central portal. The SaaS offerings provide the customers the flexibility to manage their business using hosted services or through a mix of onsite and hosted solutions. Products include MessageLabs Hosted Email, Web and Instant Messaging Security.
Storage and Server Management
Symantec’s storage and server management segment focuses on providing enterprise customers with storage management, availability, and backup and archiving solutions across heterogeneous storage and server platforms. These solutions enable companies to standardize on a single layer of infrastructure software that works on every distributed operating system and supports every storage device, database, and application in both physical and virtual environments. The primary storage and server management solutions address the areas, including Information Management and Storage Management and High Availability.
Services
Symantec Global Services help customers address information security, availability, storage, and compliance challenges at the endpoint and in multi-vendor data center environments. The Services segment delivers consulting, education, business critical and managed services that help the customers maximize the value of their investment in the products and solutions. Symantec Consulting Services provide advisory, product enablement, and residency services to enable customers to assess, design, transform, and operate their infrastructure, leveraging Symantec products and solutions. Education Services provide a range of programs, including technical training and security awareness training, to help customers optimize their Symantec solutions. Symantec Managed Services enable customers to place resource-intensive IT operations under the management of Symantec specialists in order to optimize existing resources and focus on strategic IT projects. The services include Managed Security Services, Managed Endpoint Protection Services and Managed Backup Services.
The Company competes with McAfee, Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Mozy, Inc., Carbonite, Inc., LANDesk Software, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation.
The next major product category that Symantec pursued was business project management software. In the early 1990s this was seen as one of the fastest growing software areas. Symantec introduced Guide Line, an easy-to-use project scheduling software, and provided improved versions of Time Line, a leading project management software package.
To expand in other areas of business software, Symantec made its largest acquisition since Norton Computing, purchasing Contact Software International Inc. for $47 million in exchange for 2.7 million in common shares. Contact Software, which had sales of about $20 million, was the maker of Act!, the leading contact management database program for executives and sales staffs. The acquisition also boosted Symantec's sales, which had been flat for the first nine months of fiscal 1993. In addition, Symantec finally centralized the separate marketing activities of each of its four product groups at its Cupertino, California, headquarters in 1993 in order to be more efficient. Product development, though, remained autonomous.
Despite forays into different software categories, Symantec remained dedicated to utilities programs ever since gaining that market's leadership with the acquisition of Norton Computing. In 1992 utility programs accounted for about 65 percent of revenues, whereas applications programs, such as Q&A, accounted for only 30 percent. In October of 1993 Symantec acquired Certus International Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio, which had developed antivirus and security software for the PC. In the fall of 1993, Symantec acquired Fifth Generation Systems Inc. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a developer of DiskLock, FastBack, Safe, and other software utilities for various platforms. Both companies, while remaining in their respective locations, were administratively merged into the Peter Norton Computing Group in Santa Monica, which in 1992 accounted for 75 percent of Symantec's revenues. Finally, in the spring of 1994, Symantec made a $60-million bid to acquire its leading competitor in utilities programs, Central Point Software of Beaverton, Oregon, whose 1993 revenues were estimated at $80 million. The two companies combined held 60 percent of the $440-million market for utilities software, but competition had forced prices and profits down.
Symantec's latest major strategic move was to broaden its product offerings to include software for client/server systems and local area networks. Despite its dominance in the field of software utilities, the market was shrinking as the leading supplier of PC operating system software, Microsoft, was increasingly combining utilities into later versions of its DOS operating system. Microsoft, however, was less dominant in the field of network software. Thus, Symantec purchased the NetDistributor Pro product and other technology from Trik Inc. in 1993. To aid its product development technology, in January of 1994 Symantec acquired the Rapid Enterprises division from DataEase International Inc., based in Shelton, Connecticut, for $7.5 million. Rapid Enterprises had been developing a fourth-generation software development tool for client/server applications. These tools helped Symantec to revise its existing software products so as to be able to run on enterprise-wide networks. Symantec began offering a line of network utilities in early 1994 and later combined them in a common management program, Norton Administrator for Networks. These programs permit central monitoring and execution of utilities functions on a number of computers over a network. Symantec also planned to redesign the product foundations for better integration when used over wide area networks, but its competition was tougher in this field.
Principal Subsidiaries: Symantec Ltd. (Ireland); Symantec (UK) Ltd.; Symantec GmbH (Germany); Symantec SARL (France); Symantec Canada Ltd.; Symantec Srl. (Italy).
OVERALL
Beta: 0.87
Market Cap (Mil.): $15,585.55
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 763.25
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
SYMC.O Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 26.87 32.35 21.01
EPS (TTM): -12.93 -- --
ROI: 8.21 10.09 16.02
ROE: 13.16 13.11 17.63
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1982
Employees: 1,100
Sales: $267 million
Stock Exchanges: NASDAQ National Market System
SICs: 7372 Prepackaged Software
Name Age Since Current Position
John Thompson 61 2009 Chairman of the Board
Enrique Salem 44 2009 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
James Beer 49 2006 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Janice Chaffin 56 2007 Group President - Consumer Business Unit
J.David Thompson 44 2008 Group President - Information Technology and Services Group
Scott Taylor 47 2008 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
William Robbins 42 2009 Executive Vice President - Worldwide Sales
Rebecca Ranninger 51 2006 Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer
Phillip Bullock 45 2009 Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer
Robert Miller 68 2003 Lead Independent Director
Daniel Schulman 53 2000 Director
William Coleman 62 2003 Director
David Mahoney 56 2003 Director
Michael Brown 51 2005 Director
V. Paul Unruh 62 2005 Director
Frank Dangeard 53 2007 Director
Geraldine Laybourne 63 2008 Director
Stephen Bennett 57 2010 Director
Address:
10201 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, California 95014-2132
U.S.A.
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 the word processor component within Q&A). After an extremely exciting start, the company reached a point in 1984 when 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 an excellent team, and a unique advantage 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.[citation needed] Q&A was released in November of 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.
Symantec Corporation (Symantec) is a global provider of security, storage, and systems management solutions that help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. It conducts the business in three geographic regions: Americas, which is comprised of the United States, Canada, and Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific Japan (APJ). It has five operating segments: Consumer, Security and Compliance, Storage and Server Management, Services, and Other. Symantec provides customers with software and services that protect, manage, and control information risks related to security, backup and recovery, storage, compliance, and systems management. It also maintains various distribution and services relationships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Internet service providers (ISPs), and retail and online stores. On January 22, 2010, it acquired Gideon Technologies, Inc. and October 31, 2009, it acquired SoftScan. In August 2010, the Company acquired VeriSign, Inc.'s identity and authentication business, which includes the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Code Signing Certificate Services, the Managed Public Key Infrastructure (MPKI) Services, the VeriSign Trust Seal, the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service and the VIP Fraud Detection Service (FDS).
Consumer
Symantec’s consumer segment provides Internet security and protection solutions, suites and services to individual users and home offices through a dual-brand strategy with Norton and PC Tools. The Norton brand offers security suites, as well as related services, such as online backup, family safety, and personal computer (PC) tune-up across multiple platforms. Its products include Norton 360, Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus, Norton Online Backup, PC Tools Spyware Doctor, and PC Tools Registry Mechanic.
Security and Compliance
Symantec’s security and compliance segment helps the customers standardize, automate, and reduce the costs of day-to-day security activities in order to secure and manage their information. The primary solutions in this segment address the areas, which include Enterprise Security, Systems Management and Symantec Hosted Services (SaaS). The Symantec Protection Suite creates a protected endpoint, messaging, and Web environment that is secure against complex malware, data loss and spam threats, and recovers endpoint data in the event of failure. The Symantec Data Loss Prevention Suite helps companies understand where important information resides and helps ensure the access and movement of information into and out of the company. The Symantec Control Compliance Suite allows businesses to prioritize risks, define and assess global information technology (IT) policies, and remediate identified deficiencies.
The Altiris IT Management Suite provides client, server and asset management with service desk and automation capabilities. Symantec Hosted Services, the SaaS offerings, enable customers to increase their messaging and Web protection by blocking e-mail, Web and instant messaging (IM) threats before they reach the network. The SaaS security solutions simplify global management through use of a central portal. The SaaS offerings provide the customers the flexibility to manage their business using hosted services or through a mix of onsite and hosted solutions. Products include MessageLabs Hosted Email, Web and Instant Messaging Security.
Storage and Server Management
Symantec’s storage and server management segment focuses on providing enterprise customers with storage management, availability, and backup and archiving solutions across heterogeneous storage and server platforms. These solutions enable companies to standardize on a single layer of infrastructure software that works on every distributed operating system and supports every storage device, database, and application in both physical and virtual environments. The primary storage and server management solutions address the areas, including Information Management and Storage Management and High Availability.
Services
Symantec Global Services help customers address information security, availability, storage, and compliance challenges at the endpoint and in multi-vendor data center environments. The Services segment delivers consulting, education, business critical and managed services that help the customers maximize the value of their investment in the products and solutions. Symantec Consulting Services provide advisory, product enablement, and residency services to enable customers to assess, design, transform, and operate their infrastructure, leveraging Symantec products and solutions. Education Services provide a range of programs, including technical training and security awareness training, to help customers optimize their Symantec solutions. Symantec Managed Services enable customers to place resource-intensive IT operations under the management of Symantec specialists in order to optimize existing resources and focus on strategic IT projects. The services include Managed Security Services, Managed Endpoint Protection Services and Managed Backup Services.
The Company competes with McAfee, Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Mozy, Inc., Carbonite, Inc., LANDesk Software, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation.
The next major product category that Symantec pursued was business project management software. In the early 1990s this was seen as one of the fastest growing software areas. Symantec introduced Guide Line, an easy-to-use project scheduling software, and provided improved versions of Time Line, a leading project management software package.
To expand in other areas of business software, Symantec made its largest acquisition since Norton Computing, purchasing Contact Software International Inc. for $47 million in exchange for 2.7 million in common shares. Contact Software, which had sales of about $20 million, was the maker of Act!, the leading contact management database program for executives and sales staffs. The acquisition also boosted Symantec's sales, which had been flat for the first nine months of fiscal 1993. In addition, Symantec finally centralized the separate marketing activities of each of its four product groups at its Cupertino, California, headquarters in 1993 in order to be more efficient. Product development, though, remained autonomous.
Despite forays into different software categories, Symantec remained dedicated to utilities programs ever since gaining that market's leadership with the acquisition of Norton Computing. In 1992 utility programs accounted for about 65 percent of revenues, whereas applications programs, such as Q&A, accounted for only 30 percent. In October of 1993 Symantec acquired Certus International Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio, which had developed antivirus and security software for the PC. In the fall of 1993, Symantec acquired Fifth Generation Systems Inc. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a developer of DiskLock, FastBack, Safe, and other software utilities for various platforms. Both companies, while remaining in their respective locations, were administratively merged into the Peter Norton Computing Group in Santa Monica, which in 1992 accounted for 75 percent of Symantec's revenues. Finally, in the spring of 1994, Symantec made a $60-million bid to acquire its leading competitor in utilities programs, Central Point Software of Beaverton, Oregon, whose 1993 revenues were estimated at $80 million. The two companies combined held 60 percent of the $440-million market for utilities software, but competition had forced prices and profits down.
Symantec's latest major strategic move was to broaden its product offerings to include software for client/server systems and local area networks. Despite its dominance in the field of software utilities, the market was shrinking as the leading supplier of PC operating system software, Microsoft, was increasingly combining utilities into later versions of its DOS operating system. Microsoft, however, was less dominant in the field of network software. Thus, Symantec purchased the NetDistributor Pro product and other technology from Trik Inc. in 1993. To aid its product development technology, in January of 1994 Symantec acquired the Rapid Enterprises division from DataEase International Inc., based in Shelton, Connecticut, for $7.5 million. Rapid Enterprises had been developing a fourth-generation software development tool for client/server applications. These tools helped Symantec to revise its existing software products so as to be able to run on enterprise-wide networks. Symantec began offering a line of network utilities in early 1994 and later combined them in a common management program, Norton Administrator for Networks. These programs permit central monitoring and execution of utilities functions on a number of computers over a network. Symantec also planned to redesign the product foundations for better integration when used over wide area networks, but its competition was tougher in this field.
Principal Subsidiaries: Symantec Ltd. (Ireland); Symantec (UK) Ltd.; Symantec GmbH (Germany); Symantec SARL (France); Symantec Canada Ltd.; Symantec Srl. (Italy).
OVERALL
Beta: 0.87
Market Cap (Mil.): $15,585.55
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 763.25
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
SYMC.O Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 26.87 32.35 21.01
EPS (TTM): -12.93 -- --
ROI: 8.21 10.09 16.02
ROE: 13.16 13.11 17.63
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1982
Employees: 1,100
Sales: $267 million
Stock Exchanges: NASDAQ National Market System
SICs: 7372 Prepackaged Software
Name Age Since Current Position
John Thompson 61 2009 Chairman of the Board
Enrique Salem 44 2009 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
James Beer 49 2006 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Janice Chaffin 56 2007 Group President - Consumer Business Unit
J.David Thompson 44 2008 Group President - Information Technology and Services Group
Scott Taylor 47 2008 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
William Robbins 42 2009 Executive Vice President - Worldwide Sales
Rebecca Ranninger 51 2006 Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer
Phillip Bullock 45 2009 Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer
Robert Miller 68 2003 Lead Independent Director
Daniel Schulman 53 2000 Director
William Coleman 62 2003 Director
David Mahoney 56 2003 Director
Michael Brown 51 2005 Director
V. Paul Unruh 62 2005 Director
Frank Dangeard 53 2007 Director
Geraldine Laybourne 63 2008 Director
Stephen Bennett 57 2010 Director
Address:
10201 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, California 95014-2132
U.S.A.