Symantec Vision: A Merged Approach

$13.5 bn merger between Symantec and Veritas made the data
storage and security software company the fifth largest software in the world.

The 'new' Symantec would be more about safeguarding information, from the
desktop to the data center. This was announced at the company's annual event,
'Symantec Vision', in Mumbai. In his keynote, Steven Leonard, senior vice
president, Asia-Pacific and Japan, said, "Our vision is to integrate
information and take a more holistic view of information management."

He also stressed the need for a progressive approach to attain
information integrity and end-to-end integrated solutions that proactively
protect and recover information and IT assets.

Symantec will now have a portfolio to tackle all
security-related issues, including e-mail security. The solutions aim at
protecting systems from email-generated threats, and help manage the increasing
cost of storage for email, and meet compliance and risk-management requirements.

The company's integrated information-integrity solution has
three focus areas. e-mail security and availability, wherein it protects from
email-borne threats and manages the increasing costs of storing email. It also
meets compliance and risk-management requirements. Another focus area is
business continuity, where it provides vulnerability management and
disaster-recovery solution. Lastly, for regulatory compliance, the company
implements IT controls for automated and repeatable process and enables
retention and timely retrieval of regulated documents.

Post
Vertias merger, Symantec is all geared up to cover all the bases of storage and
security. It would offer solutions on Windows platform for security, and backup
on UNIX-it already has storage. Symantec will strength its product support and
advance its consulting services. Also, with the addition of new partners, it
plans to extend market coverage. The company will also invest in local
engineering centers.

The event gave the company's partners and developers an
overview of Symantec's new role in security and storage markets, showing
clearly that it intends to move beyond the SMB market-to becoming a true
enterprise player. The merger of Symantec and Veritas has indicated that both
the companies have finally recognized the importance of integration of security
management and storage management, which is imperative to fulfill customers'
requirements for efficient enterprise data management.

The company also unveiled its new strategy for ensuring the
integrity of information for Windows. Key to the company's strategy is
securing information and keeping it safe from the myriad malicious threats on
the Internet. Second, information must always be available, and kept safe from
administrators' errors, hardware failures, and site disasters. To deliver on
the combined strategy, Symantec is building its capability on the Windows
platform and has come up with Backup Exec 10d and LiveState Recovery 6.0 for
Windows servers.

The event also saw enterprises bagging the 2005 Visionary
awards. The recipients were: Bharti Tele-Ventures, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Punjab
National Bank, and TCS. Award recipients were chosen on their innovative use of
Symantec's software to achieve business results.

Rahul Gupta