Symantec Enterprise: Providing the Best in Security

Six months ago, when I used this platform to share Symantec’s post-merger plans, I pledged to customers that we’d continue investing in what already was the most formidable technology arsenal in the cyber security industry. I also predicted that our rivals would pull out all the stops to sow doubts about Broadcom’s commitment to Symantec Enterprise Division (SED).

So far, both have been accurate.

First, let’s talk about the product side of things. In the last 9 months I’ve been privileged to be part of a remarkable corporate integration story as Broadcom put its full weight behind Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). After separating from Norton LifeLock, we were able to focus our entire attention on driving our enterprise strategy. 

• As we built out our Integrated Cyber Defense platform (ICD), we have continued to develop better solutions across endpoint, network, information and identity security and are the only vendor with the end to end portfolio to empower the adoption of XDR, SASE, and Zero-Trust through improving integration and speed:
  • From an engineering perspective, we are making these products work together seamlessly so our customers don’t need to invest their energy and money tackling integration issues.
  • As we make further progress on the integration front, we’re also improving the communication capabilities between products to make their response times quicker. Every second counts in threat response and this promises to be a boon for overwhelmed SOC defenders. 
     
• Our exclusive concentration on the enterprise allows us to fine-tune our development approach. In practice, that’s clearing the way for Symantec to customize its engineering focus to meet the specific needs of our strategic customers. The early returns suggest we’re on the right track.  Our internal data points to a 36% improvement in effectiveness catching threats. This improvement was driven by our increased focus on new cloud analytics and machine learning tuned to our enterprise customer needs.
   
• Another benefit for customers is the greater simplicity and ease of doing business with Symantec. With Symantec now using Broadcom’s flexible credit and licensing systems, we are able to rapidly provide credit terms to customers directly, instead of managing that process through 3rd parties.  

At the same time, we’re still investing in other unique capabilities that distinguishes Symantec: a vast intelligence apparatus that delivers the world’s most comprehensive security protection.

Each day, we’re tapping into a vast network of data collection sensors that gathers and collates the latest data on security incidents, events, and vulnerabilities to help customers stay ahead of the most complex threats anywhere, anytime. Our research centers monitor malicious code reports from more than 126 million attack sensors, receives data from 240,000 network sensors in more than 157 countries and tracks more than 25,000 vulnerabilities.

I’d also like to spend a moment to salute the remarkable resilience and commitment of Symantec’s employees. Any corporate integration presents challenges.  When you combine those challenges with the massive disruption of a global pandemic, it could have been almost overwhelming.  Our team has met these challenges and continued to execute and deliver, on time, and with a continued passion for our customers and partners.  I am very proud of and very fortunate to work with a group of people so entirely committed to their co-workers and to customers.

As the COVID-19 health crisis forced everyone out of their cubicles and into home offices, Symantec employees had to learn new ways of collaborating – how many of you did this much video conferencing prior to March 2020? And they doubled their effort to make sure customers stayed secure during this accelerated period of digital transformation. Impressive is an understatement.

Of course, there have been a lot of naysayers.  In particular, our competitors have demonstrated their concern by raising a lot of dubious claims to instill fear and doubt.  A lot of what they claim is provably false and they’ve been forced to retract.  While it hasn’t all been smooth, our execution is impressive and competitors are nervous.

My personal approach is to try ignore the noise and stay focused on the important job at hand. Broadcom is a company that’s very focused on moving fast, and Symantec’s customers should know that we’re also picking up the pace. That's how you ensure progress continues in an industry where customers don’t have the luxury of becoming stuck in a security rut because their supplier isn’t innovating fast enough.

What we said when the merger went through we continue to believe to be true: We are better off as part of Broadcom - and so are our customers.  Customers should know that our technology investment continues and we intend to continue to be the industry leader in security solutions.