Symantec 2009 Annual Report Download - page 64

PART I
Item 1. Business
Overview
Symantec is a global leader of security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and
consumers secure and manage their information. We conduct our business in three geographic regions: Americas,
which includes United States, Canada, and Latin America; EMEA, which includes Europe, the Middle East and
Africa; and Asia Pacific Japan (“APJ”).
Our delivery network includes direct, inside, and channel sales resources that support our ecosystem of more
than 40,000 partners worldwide, as well as various relationships with original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”),
Internet service providers (“ISPs”), and retail and online stores. We provide customers worldwide with software and
services that protect, manage and control information risks related to security, backup and recovery, storage,
compliance, and systems management.
Founded in 1982, Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries and our principal executive offices are
located at 20330 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, California 95014. Our telephone number at that location is
[phone]. Our home page on the Internet is www.symantec.com. Other than the information expressly set
forth in this annual report, the information contained, or referred to, on our website is not part of this annual report.
Strategy
Symantec’s strategy is to provide software and services to secure and manage the connected, information-
driven world of our customers against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently than any other
company. We help individuals, small businesses, and global organizations ensure that their information, technology
infrastructures and related processes are protected, managed easily and controlled automatically, independent of
devices, platforms or locations.
We operate primarily in three diversified markets within the software sector: security, storage and systems
management. The security market includes mission-critical products that protect consumers and enterprises from
threats to electronic information, endpoint devices, and computer networks. Over the past year, we have seen a
continued rise in the volume of security threats. Whereas attackers used to mass-distribute a threat to thousands or
millions of targeted machines, today’s attackers often send individually crafted attacks to each victim. Attackers are
also targeting users with social-engineering attacks, such as phishing websites that steal financial information,
passwords and other personal data. The Internet has become the primary conduit for attack activity with hackers
funneling threats through legitimate websites, placing a much larger percentage of the population at risk than in the
past. Security continues to be a top priority for enterprises as information security is increasingly linked to
regulatory compliance.
The storage software market includes products that manage, archive, backup, and recover business-critical
data. Key drivers of demand in this market include the increasing volume of information that organizations of all
sizes must manage, which is doubling every two years, the need for data to be protected and accessible at all times,
and the need for a growing number of critical applications to be continuously available. Other factors driving
demand in this market include the increasing pressure on companies to lower storage and server management costs
while simultaneously increasing the utilization, availability levels, and performance of their existing information
technology (“IT”) infrastructure.
The systems management market includes products that control the IT environment by streamlining efforts
associated with deploying, managing, patching and remediating enterprise client and server assets. The drivers for
demand in this market include customers’ desire to automate management tasks, to ensure business productivity and
to reduce IT costs and complexity.
We believe that the security, storage and systems management software markets are converging as customers
increasingly require our help in mitigating their risk profiles and managing their storage solutions in order to secure
and manage their most valuable asset — their information. As the tools and processes from these formerly discrete
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