Cloud & Telecom Security

Last week, Symantec(NASDAQ:SYMC) acquired the security businesses of VeriSign (excluding iDefense). There have been tons of news reports and comments by market observers and analysts.  In general, given that both negative and positive comments are valid, the below chart gave a different perspective to evaluate the acquisition strategy of Symantec.

It’s a 5 year stock price chart of Symantec, with comparison against that of CA(NASDAQ:CA), McAfee(NYSE:MFE), and Nasdaq.

The overall changes in 5 years are:

• Symantec down by: -35.14%
• CA down by: -30.60%
• McAfee up by: +21.87%
• while Nasdaq up by: +9.67% Read more…

It’s a surprise news, but it’s predictable. In recent years, CA‘s business in China, Taiwan, Hongkong keeps shrinking one year after one year. Cliff left the company at 2004 due to bad performance. Unfortunately, his successor, Eric, from Sun, the former VP, AP services, failed to stop the slipping of business, further worsen the business in this region.
Today, CA closes its offices at Taiwan, Philipine, Indianisia, and etc., while the headcount of CA China has been cut greatly. What’s pity for this previous software giant.

Please read the below news report. Read more…

The management software giant announced “New Service Provider Vertical Team and Specialized Technology Solutions To Address Evolving Industry Requirements”

ISLANDIA, N.Y., October 4, 2005 – Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) today unveiled the next steps in its strategy to provide a new generation of infrastructure management solutions to help cable, wireline, and wireless service providers ensure the security, performance, and availability of their revenue generating infrastructures.

In remarks prepared for delivery at INSIGHT2005, a user conference for eHealth and SPECTRUM customers in Boston, CA President and CEO John Swainson announced the formation of a new organization within CA designed to serve the needs of the telecommunications and service provider market — and outlined how the company is leveraging its recent acquisition of Concord Communications and its Aprisma subsidiary to extend its traditional telecommunications business.

eHealth and SPECTRUM are actively managing systems in 23 of the top 24 telcos in the world as measured by Fortune Magazine in their Global 500 list (July 2005), and in all of the top 10 cable companies in the world.

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The recent acquisition of Netegrity and Concord greatly enhanced the product portfolio to meet the demands from those telco and service provider companies, so as to compete against HP and IBM more effectively.