Symantec 2009 Annual Report Download - page 68

Sales in the Consumer business through our electronic distribution channel, which includes sales derived from
OEMs, subscriptions, upgrades, online sales, and renewals, grew by $143 million in fiscal 2009 over fiscal 2008.
During fiscal 2009, approximately 79 percent of revenue in the Consumer segment came from our electronic
channels.
Enterprise
We sell and market our products and related services to enterprise customers through our direct sales force of
more than 3,500 and through a variety of indirect sales channels, which include value-added resellers, large account
resellers, distributors, and system integrators. We also sell our products through authorized distributors in more than
40 countries and OEM partners who incorporate our technologies into their products, bundle our products with their
offerings, or serve as authorized resellers of our products. Our sales efforts are primarily targeted to senior
executives and IT department personnel responsible for managing a company’s IT initiatives.
During fiscal 2009, we added a SaaS delivery model offering a pay-as-you-go model that meets the needs of
enterprise and small and medium business with evolving storage and security requirements.
Marketing and Advertising
Our marketing expenditure relates primarily to advertising and promotion, which includes demand generation
and brand recognition of our consumer and enterprise products. Our advertising and promotion efforts include, but
are not limited to, electronic and print advertising, trade shows, collateral production, and all forms of direct
marketing. We also invest in cooperative marketing campaigns with distributors, resellers, retailers, OEMs, and
industry partners.
We invest in various retention marketing and customer loyalty programs to help drive renewals and encourage
customer advocacy and referrals. We also provide focused vertical marketing programs in targeted industries and
countries.
We typically offer two types of rebate programs within most countries: volume incentive rebates to channel
partners and promotional rebates to distributors and end-users. Distributors and resellers earn volume incentive
rebates primarily based upon product sales to end-users. We also offer rebates to individual users who purchase
products through various resale channels. We regularly offer upgrade rebates to consumers purchasing a new
version of a product. Both volume incentive rebates and end-user rebates are accrued as an offset to revenue.
Support
Symantec has centralized support facilities throughout the world that provide rapid, around-the-clock
response, and are staffed by technical product experts knowledgeable in the operating environments in which
our products are deployed. Our technical support experts assist customers with product implementation and usage,
issue resolution and countermeasures, and threat detection.
Symantec provides customers various levels of enterprise support offerings. Our enterprise security support
program offers annual maintenance support contracts, including content, upgrades, and technical support. Our
standard technical support includes: unlimited hotline service delivered by telephone, fax, email, and over the
Internet; immediate patches for severe problems; periodic software updates; and access to our technical knowledge
base and frequently asked questions.
Our Consumer product support program provides self-help online services, phone, chat, email support and fee-
based premium support and diagnostic services to consumers worldwide. Customers that subscribe to LiveUpdate
receive automatic downloads of the latest virus definitions, application bug fixes, and patches for most of our
consumer products.
Customers
In fiscal 2009, 2008 and 2007, one reseller, Digital River accounted for 10%, 11% and 12%, respectively, of
our total net revenues. Digital River represented the only customer that accounted for 10 percent or more of
8