Symantec 2007 Annual Report Download - page 18

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 18 of the 2007 Symantec annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 124

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124

• Development of new data protection technologies for disk-based data protection
• Continued efforts to ensure regulatory compliance and enhanced disaster recovery
Symantec Research Labs, or SRL, is a group designed to foster new technologies and products to help us
maintain leadership in existing markets. A key component of the SRL is our Advanced Concepts group, which is
focused on identifying new markets and quickly transforming ideas into products for those markets.
Independent contractors are used for various aspects of the product development process. In addition, elements
of some of our products are licensed from third parties.
We had research and development expenses, exclusive of in-process research and development associated with
acquisitions, of $867 million in fiscal 2007, $682 million in fiscal 2006, and $334 million in fiscal 2005. We believe
that technical leadership is essential to our success and we expect to continue to commit substantial resources to
research and development.
Acquisitions
Our strategic technology acquisitions are designed to enhance the features and functionality of our existing
products, as well as extend our product leadership. We use strategic acquisitions to provide certain technology,
people, and products for our overall product and services strategy. We consider both time to market and potential
market share gains when evaluating acquisitions of technologies, product lines, or companies. We have completed a
number of acquisitions of technologies, companies, and products in the past, and we have also disposed of
technologies and products. We may acquire and/or dispose of other technologies, companies, and products in the
future.
During fiscal 2007, we completed the following acquisitions:
4FrontSecurity 4FrontSecurity was acquired in February 2007 and develops proprietary risk software, assessment
software, and content-rich assessment tools that improve customers’ insight of risk, regulatory,
compliance, and security control criteria for organizational information and business objectives.
Company-i Company-i is a United Kingdom-based professional services firm that we acquired in December
2006. The firm specializes in addressing key challenges associated with operating and managing a
data center in the financial services industry. Company-i expands the capability of Symantec’s
global consulting services group to help clients manage IT risk and cost, particularly in the data
center.
For further discussion of our acquisitions, see Note 3 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.
Competition
Our markets are consolidating, are highly competitive, and are subject to rapid changes in technology. Our
competitiveness depends on our ability to deliver products that meet our customers’ needs by enhancing our
existing solutions and services and offering reliable, scalable, and standardized new solutions on a timely basis. We
believe that the principal competitive factors necessary to be successful in our industry also include integration of
advanced technology, time to market, price, reputation, financial stability, breadth of product offerings, customer
support, brand recognition, and effective sales and marketing efforts.
In addition to the competition we face from direct competitors, we face indirect or potential competition from
application providers, operating system providers, network equipment manufacturers, and other OEMs, who may
provide various solutions and functions in their current and future products. We also compete for access to retail
distribution channels and for the attention of customers at the retail level and in corporate accounts. In addition, we
compete with other software companies, operating system providers, network equipment manufacturers and other
OEMs to acquire technologies, products, or companies and to publish software developed by third parties. We also
compete with other software companies in our effort to place our products on the computer equipment sold to
consumers by OEMs.
12