Symantec Enterprise is Here to Stay

I want to assure our competitors that the email and other promotions you send to Symantec customers are not hurting my feelings. I know that we continue to build products that deliver superior protection and work in real customer’s environments.  Our customers know it too.  And I have proof. Take a look at the latest IDC market share report that ranked Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), #1 for 2019 market share in WW corporate endpoint security software¹.  I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings. 

Our focus on fully protecting customers is what informs how we approach making security products. Symantec recognized years ago that enterprise customers can't operate effective defenses if they’re required to buy 20 different security products.  But it is deeper than that, our job is to help enterprise teams do their jobs, not add unnecessary complications to their already busy lives. 

That sensibility is part of a rich legacy. Unlike many companies in the security space, Symantec has withstood the test of time. In my 23 years here, I’ve seen a lot of established, well known companies enter the security market - and then just as quickly exit the scene when their attention span lapsed or they found that it was just too difficult to be a great security company.

Shiny new ideas may attract attention but it’s consistency that wins the security game. None of this would work without our security expertise. Indeed, many of the people who worked here 20 years ago are still with Symantec and that deep well of experience informs our approach to security.  Every day they bring that reservoir of expertise to the task and their collective efforts have been rewarded by the loyalty of customers who trust us to consistently deliver great products. If we were not the best, year after year, decade after decade, sophisticated customers would move somewhere else. They don't.  

We have a lot of exceptional talent that has security in their DNA and a passion for learning. We typically discover 3 to 4 previously unknown targeted attack groups each year. In fact, we recently made a major exposé with our report on WastedLocker: centered around a highly targeted ransomware campaign. The end goal of these attacks was to cripple the victim’s IT infrastructure by encrypting most of their computers and servers in order to demand a multimillion dollar ransom. (Rest assured, it won't be our last.) 

The most frequent comment I get from people who have gone to other security companies is “you can’t believe how many more tools, how much more data, how much more security infrastructure Symantec has compared to the company I moved to”.  Actually, I can.  These are the investments Symantec makes that startups can’t build fast enough and companies fishing for new revenue streams won’t make. 

Still, innovation isn’t very useful if it means that customers must change their environments to use a new security technology. It not only has to work in their environment. It also has to protect every device type and OS that a customer has. Security solutions should protect your IT infrastructure, not dictate it.  For instance, your security vendor must offer the flexibility of on-prem, cloud, or hybrid to match your cloud journey, not force you to adopt a full cloud strategy before you are ready.    

I know how hard we work at getting this right. Attackers only need to be successful once. But security vendors need to be successful every time, year after year, decade after decade. The reality of the contemporary threat landscape demands that level of commitment. Our customers include the largest companies in the world, and they are constantly under attack. They can’t settle for second best and would not remain with us if we were unable to deliver. 

One last observation. In my time I’ve seen multiple cycles where new product categories emerge.  But in time, it becomes clear that the new product category is really a feature and that to truly be usable, the feature needs to be integrated with other technologies and be manageable.

We reached that point in the cycle again, where these new “features” need to come together.  The good news is there is a solution that includes the latest security innovations, all best of breed, integrated with traditional endpoint protection and manageable from a single console and a single agent. It’s called SES Complete. It’s what will again make us the No. 1 vendor next year and the year after that.  Symantec Enterprise is here to stay.   

¹ IDC, Worldwide Corporate Endpoint Security Software Market Shares, 2019: Best of Suite Battle Looming in the Years Ahead; Doc # US46734320, July 2020