Symantec 'liberated' by life as a $4bn start-up

UK boss Keith Bird tells CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe that partners should take a fresh look at newly single vendor

As HP prepares to formerly split in two, our colleagues over on Channelnomics Europe have reported on life at another of the market's giants following its break up.

After announcing that it would split into separate security and information management (IM) units this time last year in order to promote greater focus, Symantec sold its IM arm, Veritas, to the Carlyle Group for $8bn in August.

Symantec is a security specialist "in the truest sense of the word," according to Keith Bird, vice president of northern Europe. He explained that the funds from the Veritas sell-off have already accelerated corporate development initiatives and will continue to do so in the coming years.

While he could not give specifics, he noted that M&A was "definitely on the cards".

"It's not often a company of our size and maturity gets a chance to call itself a $4.2bn (€5.7bn) start-up - there's something liberating in that," Bird (pictured) told Channelnomics Europe.

In terms of product, Bird said that partners who had turned away from Symantec should take a "fresh look" at the vendor now it is entirely security orientated.

"We're the world's largest private global intelligence network and naturally that manifests in how we operate and what we can bring to the table. We know the important of an immediate, reactive approach which is where our managed monitoring service comes in."

Symantec's managed monitoring service employs 500 people and focuses on identifying non-symptomatic attacks that customers would be unable to detect themselves. Bird said that the rising popularity of the service, as well as services across the wider security sector, was inevitable given the "increased sophistication" of hackers. He described Symantec's balance of products and services as a "key differentiator".

"We have everything under one roof, which is important because customers don't want to buy from dozens of different vendors to cover themselves from external and internal threats," he claimed.

Bird explained that the changing face of security had forced end users to acknowledge the prevalence of cyber-attacks and accept that the battle was now about detection and mitigation, as opposed to just prevention.

"The biggest shift in the last couple of years has been the realisation that security perimetres don't exist as they once did. The internet of things has made companies and individuals more vulnerable than ever before and most people nowadays have had to deal with spam, cloning or viruses, so there's more demand than ever for solutions."

Moving forward, Bird said that Symantec would continue to focus on research and development, but added that expanding its channel was also on the radar.

He highlighted the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy as particularly robust core markets. On the emerging market front, he said that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered "very attractive" growth potential.

However, he stipulated that there were no particular territories that Symantec was prioritising. Instead, he said, the vendor was aiming for swell its channel across the whole of EMEA.

"There aren't really any EMEA regions where we wouldn't welcome partners talking to us," he said.