Symantec Signals More M&A

Symantec beat analysts' revenue estimates with its first-quarter results, and the vendor, which stumped up $13.5 billion for storage specialist Veritas last year, has its eye on more deals. (See Symantec Reports Q1, Symantec & Veritas: It's a Deal, and Symantec, Veritas Complete Merger.)

"We will continue to look for bolt-on technology capabilities that can be integrated into our product portfolio," said CEO John Thompson on a conference call last night, although he ruled out the possibility of any more Veritas-sized deals in the near future. And he refused to comment on rumors that RSA Security, recently bought by EMC for $2.1 billion, had been one of these targets. (See Third Brigade Secures Versatel.)

In a note released earlier this week, Edward Maguire, research analyst at Merrill Lynch, warned that Symantec is still missing key pieces of technology needed to tie together the security and storage sides of its businesses. "In particular, the company lacks access management/identity management and encryption technologies which would be helpful to effect policy-driven data security," he wrote, adding that RSA's Web access management and encryption tools would have proved useful.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group tells Dark Reading that one possible acquisition candidate could be software specialist Phoenix Technologies, which, according to media reports, is already being courted by venture capital firms Ramius Capital Group and MV Advisors. "There's a chance that Symantec could come in as a white knight," says Enderle.

Read the whole story at Dark Reading.James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch