Veritas guns for small business

At a recent news conference in New York City, Veritas launched its Backup
Exec 10 for Windows, focusing squarely on the small and medium businesses, and
their need to protect desktops and laptops as well as the network and its
servers. The product suite offers simplified and centralized management for
Windows backup servers through a single console. It's also biased more toward
disk-based backup, rather than tape, and aims for 'continuous data protection,'
which a senior Veritas executive described as the 'holy grail of data
protection' as against periodic backup. The company also launched the Veritas
Backup Exec 10 Suite, which integrates its former Storage Replicator and
StorageCentral products.

The SMB/SMB user (defined, roughly, by Veritas as a business with under 1,000
employees) needs backup and recovery as much as the large enterprise does, but
with specific needs, such as lower costs, very simple administration, and an
urgent need to protect data on employee laptops and desktops. In this market,
Veritas says the predominant platform is Windows, though there is a lot of
deployment of Linux and other platforms in the large enterprise space: hence the
focus here on a Windows product. And the most critical application that needs
protection: email and messaging.

The company also announced the Veritas Virtual Academy, a new online,
on-demand education center for partners and users of its software solutions
worldwide, as well as new course offerings to help partners sell, deliver and
support the new product and suite.

When asked, inevitably, about layoffs due to the acquisition by Symantec,
Veritas chairman and CEO Gary Bloom described the merger to journalists from
Asia as one of "revenue synergies rather than cost cutting", because
of very low product overlap between the two companies. This is "not
something that Wall Street easily understands," Bloom added, saying that
customers, partners and all except the financial analysts had welcomed the
merger. He said there is very little workforce duplication, hence there would be
very few layoffs, in the few hundreds (of a combined workforce of 13,000)-likely
in the "back office functions such as administration".

There is likely to be little effect on the channels, from this merger. The
two companies use distinct channels: Veritas, the solutions provider route to
the enterprise, and Symantec, the software product channels. But Veritas could
gain from Symantec's larger channel reach in the consumer/SMB space.

For SMB and Windows is a market that Symantec is strong in. With the Veritas
acquisition, Symantec expands its product line, betting it will help companies
cut costs by using one supplier by blending security with data management,
according to John Thompson, Chairman and CEO of Symantec. The merger also
expands the reach of this largely consumer and SMB company into the corporate
software market, giving it sales staff trained to sell to larger companies, and
a services organization that will most likely continue under Veritas' Gerg
Hughes, and will work largely through channel partners. The combined company
will have an annual revenue of $5 billion. While the combined entity will be
called Symantec, Gary Bloom said that the Veritas brand will continue for the
products, just as Symantec did with the Norton anti-virus software, after that
acquisition. Bloom will become vice-chairman and president of the merged entity,
while John Thompson continues as Symantec's chairman and CEO.

PRASANTO K ROY

NEW YORK (The author was hosted in New York by Veritas Corp)