Symantec buys up as VeriSign sells off
By Jordan Robertson |
May 21, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SYMANTEC Corp's decision to pay US$1.28 billion to buy a division of VeriSign Inc that sells security technology to Websites highlights how quickly the companies are moving in opposite directions.
Symantec, best known for its antivirus software for personal computers, wants to secure more things.
With the VeriSign deal, announced on Wednesday, Symantec will have spent nearly US$3 billion in two years acquiring technologies that make it a bigger player in other parts of the security market, such as protecting data on mobile phones and delivering software over the Internet.
Meanwhile, VeriSign wants to secure fewer things.
It wants to focus instead on a lesser-known but more robust part of its business: managing traffic to Websites with addresses ending in ".com" and ".net," and collecting fees for registering those domain names.
VeriSign has been purging divisions for the past three years, after realizing it was spread too thin following a buying binge designed to insulate it from the kinds of problems it had after the dot-com collapse a decade ago.
Prior to Wednesday's deal, VeriSign had sold more than a dozen businesses since 2007 for a total of nearly US$1 billion.
What Symantec gets out of the VeriSign deal is one of the Web's best-known brand names for security.
VeriSign's logo - a check mark and the tag "VeriSign Secured" - is ubiquitous on Websites that have bought its security technology.
Symantec, best known for its antivirus software for personal computers, wants to secure more things.
With the VeriSign deal, announced on Wednesday, Symantec will have spent nearly US$3 billion in two years acquiring technologies that make it a bigger player in other parts of the security market, such as protecting data on mobile phones and delivering software over the Internet.
Meanwhile, VeriSign wants to secure fewer things.
It wants to focus instead on a lesser-known but more robust part of its business: managing traffic to Websites with addresses ending in ".com" and ".net," and collecting fees for registering those domain names.
VeriSign has been purging divisions for the past three years, after realizing it was spread too thin following a buying binge designed to insulate it from the kinds of problems it had after the dot-com collapse a decade ago.
Prior to Wednesday's deal, VeriSign had sold more than a dozen businesses since 2007 for a total of nearly US$1 billion.
What Symantec gets out of the VeriSign deal is one of the Web's best-known brand names for security.
VeriSign's logo - a check mark and the tag "VeriSign Secured" - is ubiquitous on Websites that have bought its security technology.
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