Symantec Introduces IRM Strategy for Securing and Managing Unstructured Information

Protect Information Everywhere, Reduce Storage Costs and Automate High Cost Workflows

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Symantec Vision – Symantec Corp (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced its Information Risk Management (IRM) strategy and products that help organizations to secure and manage unstructured information such as email, instant messages (IM) and files. A new survey of IT leaders shows that unstructured information is not only a major driver of rising IT storage costs, but also a root cause of security and business challenges that stem from failure to manage information risk. Symantec Information Risk Management enables organizations to protect their information everywhere, reduce storage costs and automate high cost work flows.

A Symantec survey of IT managers in September found the following:

* 85 percent rated protecting business information in motion and at rest “important” to “extremely important”
* Half say that their email and SharePoint content is growing at a rate of more than 30 percent annually
* 75 percent indicate that reducing the amount of storage for unstructured information is “important” to “extremely important”
* Only 15 percent would “bet their paycheck” that they could quickly produce information required for legal discovery

“Symantec meets both the short and long-term challenges with an approach that protects unstructured information whenever it flows, wherever it resides,” said Francis deSouza, senior vice president, Information Risk Management, Symantec. “Our approach drastically cuts the cost of storage, server and energy consumption as well as simplifies and automates the process of finding information for business, legal and regulatory purposes.”

With almost 2,000 beds, 540,000 nursing days and more than 7,500 employees, the University Hospital Group Universitaire Ziekenhuizen (UZ) Leuven is one of the largest services centers for healthcare in Belgium. Recently IT management worked with Symantec to simplify management of its information risks caused by the rapid growth and complexity of email and files.

“Symantec’s Information Risk Management solutions are helping us keep attackers out, keep information in, store it efficiently and find it easily,” said Reinoud Reynders, IT manager at UZ Leuven. “The combination of Symantec gateway filtering, data loss prevention, intelligent archiving and self-service discovery technologies will make it easier for us to leverage the information we want, when we want it, without having to disrupt our business processes.”

As part of its Vision Conference for users in Europe today, Symantec announced details of the three new products at the core of its Information Risk Management strategy. Each product set is number one in market share in its market segment according to Gartner [1] and IDC [2] giving customers confidence using them.

* Symantec Brightmail Gateway 8.0 – Formerly Symantec Mail Security, Brightmail Gateway offers enhanced sender reputation technology and improved management features to deliver three key value propositions: Comprehensive inbound protection across email and IM, with effective and accurate antispam and antivirus protection; Outbound control, implementing advanced content filtering and data loss prevention technologies to help companies protect sensitive information and implement regulatory compliance; Simple management and administration with comprehensive reporting and granular controls.
* Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 – Symantec broadens coverage of endpoint events, simplifies endpoint DLP management and enhances its data discovery capabilities in this new version of Symantec Data Loss Prevention. With complete data loss prevention coverage across endpoint, network and storage systems through a single, unified interface, Symantec Data Loss Prevention provides customers the ability to discover, monitor and protect confidential information wherever it is stored or used.
* Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.0 – Symantec’s intelligent archiving platform now helps organizations reduce the costs of storing unstructured information by more than 60 percent through a combination of advancements to its data de-duplication and electronic discovery features and through associated energy cost savings. Enterprise Vault lets organizations store, manage and discover information enterprise-wide, becoming the primary repository for unstructured information.

“The combination of these products allows Symantec to deliver a cohesive strategy to organizations looking to address the challenges of securing and managing their unstructured information,” said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Symantec Information Risk Management addresses major drivers of rising IT costs and gets at the root cause of not only security but business challenges.”

Additional details on each of these new products can be found in the Symantec newsroom.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Note to Editors: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

[1] Gartner Dataquest Insight: E-Mail Archiving Software Market, Worldwide, 2008

[2] IDC Market Analysis: Worldwide Email Archiving Applications 2008-2012 Forecast Update and 2007 Vendor Shares