Symantec 2007 Annual Report Download - page 19

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The competitive environments in which each segment operates are described below
Consumer Products
Some of the channels in which our consumer products are offered are highly competitive. Our competitors are
sometimes intensely focused on customer acquisition, which has led such competitors to offer their technology for
free, engage in aggressive marketing, or enter into competitive partnerships.
Our primary competitors in the Consumer Products segment are McAfee, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and
Trend Micro, Inc. There are also several smaller regional security companies that we compete against primarily in
the EMEA and Asia Pacific Japan regions. During fiscal 2007, Microsoft launched a security suite that competes
with our consumer products. This security suite includes antispyware and antivirus features, PC tuneup, a managed
two-way firewall, and a backup utility. In addition, Microsoft has recently added security features to new versions of
its operating system products that provide some of the same functions offered in our products.
Security and Data Management
In the security and data management markets, we compete against many companies that offer competing
products to our technology solutions and competing services to our response and support services. Our primary
competitors in the security market are McAfee, Trend Micro, Cisco Systems, Inc, and Microsoft. There are also
several smaller regional security companies that we compete against primarily in the EMEA and APJ regions. The
market for data protection products is characterized by ongoing technological innovation. Many of our strategic
partners offer software products that compete with our products or have announced their intention to focus on
developing or acquiring their own backup, archive, and data restoration software products. Our primary competitors
in the data protection business are International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM, CA, Inc., EMC
Corporation, CommVault Systems, Inc., and Microsoft. In the managed security services business, our primary
competitors are VeriSign, Inc. and IBM.
Recent security acquisitions and offerings by EMC, IBM and Microsoft are indicators of the move into the
security market which could lead to the release of stand-alone enterprise products or to the inclusion of security
functionality in future versions of the operating system products. With security being a required solution for
enterprises of all sizes, we believe that product differentiation is essential for us to maintain our leadership position.
We are focused on integrating next generation technology capabilities into our solution set in order to differentiate
ourselves from the competition.
Data Center Management
The markets for data center management are intensely competitive. In the areas of storage management,
application management and server management, our primary competitors are EMC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard
Company, or HP, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Oracle Corporation, and Microsoft.
Services
We believe that the principal competitive factors for our services segment include technical capability,
customer responsiveness, and our ability to hire and retain talented and experienced services personnel. Our
primary competitors in the services segment are EMC, HP, IBM, and regional specialized consulting firms.
Intellectual Property
Protective Measures
We regard some of the features of our internal operations, software, and documentation as proprietary and rely
on copyright, patent, trademark and trade secret laws, confidentiality procedures, contractual arrangements, and
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