Symantec, Veritas Hash Out Merger Agreement

from the as-expected... dept

It's turning into quite a month for tech mergers. As was rumored earlier this week, it looks like Symantec and Veritas have agreed to merge. When the deal was still in the rumor stage, CRN ran a story that included a quote from me explaining why Symantec is doing this deal. Symantec is a utility company. Their reason for being is basically to create utilities that help solve problems when things go wrong (stopping spam, stopping spyware, stopping security holes, etc.). Many of these features are (slowly, slowly, slowly) being built into the operating system, so Symantec needs to always try to stay one step ahead of what Microsoft is building in to Windows. Veritas gives them a well recognized name in the data backup space, especially at the corporate level -- an area that hasn't yet been seriously targeted by Microsoft. This doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be successful. Integration is always a big issue, and not everyone believes the two companies will mesh very well. What also will be interesting is whether or not another player jumps in to try to outbid Symantec, as Veritas is generally considered a hot acquisition target.

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