The VAR Guy

Better late than never. Symantec, nearly three years after acquiring Veritas, appears to be hitting its stride. At least that’s the spin Symantec gave after announcing surprisingly strong earnings on April 30.

Lots of folks have been bashing Symantec lately. A few even predicted that the company would break itself up. But The VAR Guy didn’t pile on the bashing session.

The reason: Storage (Veritas) and security (Symantec) truly are complementary solutions, especially in the age of corporate compliance. Symantec’s vision hasn’t been flawed. But the company’s execution has repeatedly fallen short of Wall Street’s expectations.

After completing the Veritas takeover, Symantec wound up with a faulty ERP system that burned distributors and VARs. At last, Symantec appears to have fixed those problems and sales are picking up again.

Consumer sales rose 10 percent, storage and server management climbed 11 percent, and security and compliance software sales jumped 21 percent compared to the corresponding quarter last year.

Good, But Not Great

Nice, but The VAR Guy still has one key concern: Symantec still isn’t saying much about the Symantec Protection Network, a software as a service platform that VARs can use to offer storage (now) and security (soon) as an on-demand option for customers.

At first glance, storage and security are a dynamic duo for SaaS customers; both services, after all, are in high demand. However, SPN hasn’t generated much buzz. And insiders at Trend Micro — a key Symantec rival — say they don’t run into Symantec much when competing in the SaaS and managed services markets. In fact, Trend insiders point to McAfee as a more established rival in the managed services space.