Symantec expands enterprise offering to distribution

Security giant Symantec has flagged a plan to expand the availability of its enterprise network and desktop solutions by offering a wider selection to distributors and resellers.

David Blackman, channel sales director at Symantec Australia, said the security vendor had acquired various network and desktop security offerings via its merger with Veritas that it believed could be productively offered through the channel.

Symantec would offer a wider choice of enterprise availability and vulnerability protection products and services via distribution, he said.

"That will be to a restricted number of partners," Blackman said.

He said partners with knowledge and experience in Microsoft Exchange on the security and availability side could take those offerings up as a "real opportunity".

"We're seeing a lot of demand from customers and partners requesting it," Blackman said.

Desktop and network security services were increasingly important for Symantec. Meanwhile, most partners sought sources of recurring revenue, as opposed to a product or service they could sell only once, he said.

"Forty percent of Symantec's revenue comes from recurring streams, so it is very important to Symantec as well," Blackman said.

Resellers that built a security practice around services for the business desktop and network "absolutely enabled" a recurring revenue stream that also earned them a chance to add related offerings such as email security over time, he said.

Symantec and Veritas Software completed their merger 2 July. The companies claimed at the time that the deal would give Symantec a chance to manage and secure enterprise data more effectively.

While news of the merger elicited mixed reviews from analysts worldwide at the time, long time partners of both companies have since expressed approval, arguing that each would gain economies of scale and complementary strengths.

One global Symantec partner, storage vendor Network Appliance, said the alliance with Veritas would improve the availability features of Symantec products.

NetApp as a result expected to expand joint product development with Symantec and tighten interoperability with Symantec and Veritas offerings, the company said at the time.