Symantec 2012 Annual Report Download - page 90

Competition
Our markets are consolidating, highly competitive, and subject to rapid changes in technology. We are
focused on integration across our broad product portfolio and are including next-generation technology
capabilities into our solution set to differentiate ourselves from the competition. We believe that the principal
competitive factors necessary to be successful in our industry include product quality and effectiveness, 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 retailers, 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 spending 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 and enterprises by OEMs.
The competitive environments for each segment are described below.
Consumer
Some of the channels in which our consumer products are offered are highly competitive. Our competitors
are intensely focused on customer acquisition, which has led competitors to offer their technology for free,
engage in aggressive marketing, or enter into competitive partnerships. Our primary competitors in the Consumer
segment are McAfee, Inc., owned by Intel Corporation (“McAfee”) and Trend Micro Inc. (“Trend Micro”).
There are also several security companies and freeware providers that we compete against primarily in the
EMEA and APJ regions. For our consumer backup offerings, our primary competitors are Carbonite, Inc. and
Mozy, Inc., owned by EMC Corporation (“EMC”).
Security and Compliance
In the security and management markets, we compete against many companies that offer competing
products to our solutions. Our primary competitors in the security and management market are McAfee,
Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”), and Trend Micro. There are also several smaller regional security
companies that we compete against primarily in the EMEA and APJ regions. In the authentication services
market, our primary competitors are Comodo Group, Inc., RSA, the security division of EMC, Entrust, Inc., and
GoDaddy.com, Inc. In the SaaS security market, our primary competitors are Google Inc.’s Postini Services and
Microsoft. Our primary competitors in the managed services business are SecureWorks, Inc., owned by Dell, Inc.
and Verizon Communications, Inc.
Storage and Server Management
The markets for storage management, backup, archiving, and eDiscovery are intensely competitive. Our
primary competitors are CommVault Systems, Inc., EMC, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, and Oracle.
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 other measures to protect our proprietary information. Our intellectual property is an important and valuable
asset that enables us to gain recognition for our products, services, and technology and enhance our competitive
position.
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