SPLITTERS! Symantec cleft in twain

The reports have been confirmed: Symantec CEO Michael Brown will split the unwieldy business into separate security and information management concerns, thus undoing the 2004 Veritas acquisition. Brown has moved quickly after his confirmation in the role to lift the cleaver. The San Andreas-style fault running through the …

[The Librarian]

Veritas?

I vote for the name "Veritas" for the other bit.

[Adam 1]

Re: Veritas?

And Norton's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Veritas?

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and did not stay for an answer.

The other organisation whose name means "Truth" is Pravda. I'm not sure what you can infer from that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me: why all those acquisitions were good then?

Don't know the company history in detail, but I remember them growing from "Norton" to... everything else via acquisitions. Like PayPal & Ebay, someone has to reach for whoever made the deals in the first place and ask for their bonuses back.

[FlatSpot]

Re: Remind me: why all those acquisitions were good then?

I wonder if its a way of borrowing more money, saddle each company, like dividing your house and taking out two mortgages. Loads of "free" extra money, nice bonus for a bit and then off to the next company before repayments are due.

[The Godfather]

Re: Remind me: why all those acquisitions were good then?

Well spotted....

[Whitter]

More CEO illusionary "added value"

So all bonuses paid when acquiring Veritas were hokum?

Either that or the bonuses about to be paid for spinning them back out again are.

No? Really? Both were OK? Hmm...

[DerekCurrie]

How about Symantec simply split from the computer business entirely...

... And put us all out of its misery. Why anyone bothers with their stuff, I cannot fathom.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the schism between cloud and desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlocking that hidden shareholder value ?

Way to go Mikie Brown and company for trying again to unlock the hidden value. Anyone remember Quantum's split into two companies (DSS tape) and (QNTM disk) orchestrated by Mr. Brown ?

That dog didn't hunt very well and took a profitible business with billions in revenue and turned it into the pathetic quantum of today that can't even pimp themselves off to a private equity firm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good!!

I won't go into the details of my time at Symantec and what we found out about combining the IT security business with datacenter software/storage, but this is a good move--just 9 years too late is all.

[JeffyPoooh]

I hope it hurts...

Idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

$15BN + $15BN = $20BN

I was working at Veritas when the merger happened, somehow they combined two companies which were both worth roughly $15BN EACH, and the combined market cap turned out to be something like $20BN. Brilliant way to lose $10BN value.