Symantec Expands its Horizon

Security, storage and systems management solutions provider, Symantec Corporation (SYMC - Analyst Report) is currently expanding its operations to serve companies in the virtualization and cloud computing market. Moreover, the company has recently come out with a report analyzing the security gaps in Apple's (AAPL - Analyst Report) iOS and Google's (GOOG - Analyst Report) Android Platform.

To expand in the virtualization market, the company recently launched the latest version of Symantec ApplicationHA. This solution is specially designed for VMware virtual environments that provide customers the ability to efficiently virtualize their business critical applications. Symantec ApplicationHA is specifically designed to enhance the existing disaster recovery capabilities of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Integration and provides a platform for monitoring and managing hundreds of applications within the VMware vCenter Server.

This newly developed product from Symantec will operate within the VMware guest operating system and will be fully integrated with VMware (VMW - Snapshot Report) High Availability. In the event of an application failure, ApplicationHA coordinates recovery and restarts the application and/or virtual machine. This enables organizations to confidently move their business critical applications into VMware virtual machines.

Moreover, ApplicationHA will also monitor the right sequence of online application components during testing and actual disaster recovery scenarios. We believe this product will gain considerable market acceptance, as it provides the much needed security and efficiency in a virtualized environment.        

Moreover, Symantec has published a report evaluating the security approaches employed in Apple's iOS and Google's Android. This covers an in-depth, technical assessment of the two popular mobile platforms.

The findings from the report suggest that the current platforms are designed with security in mind; however, these provisions are not always sufficient to protect sensitive enterprise assets that regularly find their way into devices. This information may in turn help corporations understand the security risks of deploying these devices in the enterprise.

Moreover, we believe that the growing importance of cloud computing, mobility and virtualization will accelerate the need for security. To capitalize on the surging demand, Symantec introduced a number of products, which encompasses all its businesses. They are also positive about a modest growth in the consumer vertical, which lagged in the past few quarters

Symantec delivered good fourth quarter results. Given its significant share in the fast-growing security market and the acquisition of VeriSign’s identity/authentication business, we believe Symantec will be able to capitalize on the vast opportunities in the security market.

Customers and channel partners are providing positive feedback on the company and strategic ties with VMware Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM - Analyst Report) are expected to work in favor of the company. However, intense competition from big and small players as well as the threat from Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT - Analyst Report) new Windows operating systems may hamper margin expansion, but we believe Symantec’s technology will enable it to deliver decent results going forward.

Currently, Symantec has a Zacks #3 Rank, implying a short-term Buy rating.

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