Symantec 2014 Annual Report Download - page 84

Changing our Product Offerings
With a portfolio of leading products, we focused our development efforts on making our point solutions
better, designing new integrated solutions, and expanding our offerings by partnering with network security
vendors to offer solutions that provide multi-tier protection.
Business Highlights
During fiscal 2014, we took the following actions in support of our business:
• We released new solutions. Storage Foundation includes a disruptive new capability that abstracts in-
server memory, allowing the sharing of flash storage across servers without the need for expensive
storage hardware. We offer a vendor-agnostic solution providing these benefits so customers can run any
storage configuration while managing performance and redundancy entirely through software. NetBackup
is designed for enterprise level scale, which can accommodate hundreds of thousands of virtual machines
and petabytes of data while giving customers faster recovery capabilities. As IT organizations move to
software-defined data centers, they can now simplify and automate the protection of massive and complex
physical, virtual, and cloud environments which are the building blocks of a modern data center. Mobile
App Center is an important enhancement to our integrated mobile workforce productivity solution and
includes our Sealed program which delivers enterprise-class security and control for both internally-
developed and third- party apps on both iOS and Android operating systems. Our new Disarm technology
uses a technique to protect companies from targeted attacks and is included in our messaging offering.
Norton solutions include new advanced repair capabilities, compatibility with the new features of
Windows 8.1, and protect against new and evolving threats.
• We entered into key partnerships. We are working with Cisco to integrate technology into their
Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) architecture and extend into the infrastructure automation space.
We continue to work with several customers to integrate next-generation firewalls with Symantec
Endpoint Protection using our Managed Security Service. This initiative will seek to provide a new set of
enhanced advanced threat detection capabilities that will enable our customers to automatically prioritize
and provide comprehensive contextual intelligence for incidents based on correlation between network-
based advanced threat detection, endpoint security, and Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network.
• We enhanced our eBusiness platform into a digital experience that enables existing and potential
customers to discover, purchase, and receive product help online with real-time customer care. This
improves our ability to reach and acquire a new set of customers by expanding our payment options,
expanding our eBusiness platform on a global basis, and advancing our search capabilities.
• We attracted new technology executives, who bring valuable skills in holistic information protection
product design, integrated IT implementation, cloud infrastructure, eCommerce, global operations, and
customer experience.
• We implemented a capital allocation strategy pursuant to which we expect to return over time
approximately 50% of free cash flow to stockholders through a combination of dividends and share
repurchases, while still enabling our company to invest in its future. As part of this program we
initiated a quarterly cash dividend, targeting a yield of approximately 2.5% based on our closing stock
price on May 1, 2013. On May 2, 2013, our board of directors approved a quarterly dividend of $0.15
per share of common stock, the first dividend in Symantec’s history.
• Our board of directors approved an additional $1.0 billion stock repurchase program. This program
does not have an expiration date. As of March 28, 2014, we repurchased 21 million shares of our
common stock for an aggregate amount of $500 million and $658 million remained authorized for
future repurchases.
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