Symantec has confirmed it will split into two separate public companies; one focused on IT security and the other on information management.
President and CEO Michael Brown claimed in a statement that the move would enable each business to focus more effectively on driving growth and “shareholder value.”
“As the security and storage industries continue to change at an accelerating pace, Symantec’s security and IM businesses each face unique market opportunities and challenges,” he added.
“It has become clear that winning in both security and information management requires distinct strategies, focused investments and go-to market innovation.”
The move is also designed to simplify operations and capital allocation, and afford each business greater flexibility to pursue partnerships and a distinct M&A strategy, Symantec said.
The security business will include the following: consumer and enterprise endpoint security; endpoint management; encryption; mobile; SSL certificates; user authentication; mail, web and data center security; data loss prevention; hosted security; and managed security services.
The strategy on this front is to unify the security platform so that all products across business and consumer lines can benefit from the threat information generated by its customers globally.
It is also hoping to tap a growing managed security services market predicted to reach $10bn by 2018, and unify the Norton range into one offering.
Finally, Symantec is aiming to capitalize on a growing demand for tools to defend against targeted attacks by building ATP and DLP capabilities into more products. An “ATP threat defense gateway” will be launched by the end of the fiscal year, it said.
Marcin Kleczynski, CEO at Malwarebytes, argued that many security vendors are “ burdened with layers of bureaucracy” and therefore struggle to keep up with the cyber criminals.
“The decision to split Symantec in two is a perfect example of this need for focus in the security sector,” he added.
“By freeing itself from the distractions created by trying to capture a variety of markets, Symantec can be more single-minded in its response to the ever advancing threat landscape.”