Split or miss? Symantec partners upbeat ahead of break-up

The tale of Symantec's split into an information management (IM) arm, Veritas, and a security arm took a twist this month when the Wall Street Journal reported it could be selling off the former.

A range of names have been rumoured to be interested in the IM business, with Reuters reporting that NetApp and EMC are both in the frame for the move.

But when CRN approached Symantec regarding the sale of the Veritas business, the security giant said the planned split was on course for the end of 2015.

"We are on track to separate Veritas and Symantec into two independently traded companies by the end of the calendar year – one focused on information management and one focused on security," a statement sent to CRN said.

However, according to sources close to the matter, the forthcoming divide is not running without hitch, as CRN understands it has created discontent within parts of the UK Symantec camp and a number of senior employees are rumoured to have departed the business since the split was announced.

One such employee is Graham Ahearne, who was previously director of product management at Symantec before he departed for data analytics firm Corvil this month.

When asked for a comment on these departures, Symantec simply repeated its previous line that the divide is going to plan.

As well as directors reportedly leaving in the UK, CRN also revealed in January that a number of UK roles – believed to be sales administration, telesales and renewals staff –  were "proposed for redundancy", as part of the forthcoming divide at Symantec.

Partner reaction

Despite all the churn, Stephen Massie, managing director of Symantec partner Incit Technology, said on the whole the split would be positive for channel partners and the sale of Veritas would not hinder business.

"The split will make somewhat of a leviathan of an organisation with hundreds of products a little more able to focus on what they actually have in their portfolio. At the present moment they have so many products across so many areas that some of the products they have bought sort of disappear.

"They buy some great products but if they split up like this, these products may get some more visibility," he said.

"For the business personally, we have come from the IT management side of it, and it has really struggled since Symantec acquired that so we are hopeful that the split will bring back some of the focus on those products because they are going to be more strategic than they have been in the past."

When asked if the potential sale of the Veritas arm would affect his business, Massie said it wouldn't as they will become two separate companies either way.

Dermot Williams, managing director of Symantec security partner Threatscape Security Solutions, meanwhile, said he was at first concerned about the split but is now convinced it will be good news for his business.

"My honest thought at the time was it was going to bring around a few quarters of chaos, as they tried to plan for it," he said.

"For a multibillion-dollar business to split itself in two is no simple task, but I also thought that the end results for us at least, as a security partner, would be positive because the remaining people would be focused purely on security within the vendor, so everyone we speak to in the future will care deeply about security.

"Some partners who deal across the entire portfolio will probably be more affected than we are, for us it's the same portfolio products and many of the same people," Williams said.

Following the trend

One firm which operates across both sides of the Symantec business is distributor Tech Data, but according to marketing director Andy Dow, the spin-off or sale of Veritas would not be detrimental to his business.

"This is becoming more of a norm than something that is unusual. They are doing it, HP is doing it, and it's becoming prevalent in our industry in order [for vendors] to gain the right levels of focus and accountability."

And indeed splitting does seem to be somewhat de rigueur for tech giants of late, with HP, Symantec and eBay all announcing their intentions to divide last October.

"The short-term effect on partners won't be great but the long-term effect has to be good otherwise they wouldn't be doing it," Dow added.

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