Symantec buys Messagelabs

Mikey · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:01

Bit of a surprise purchase..

http://www.symantec.com/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=20081008_02

bigredshark · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:09

A little surprising actually, symantec are getting big now, this on top of the Veritas aquisition a while back...

m4cc45 · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:16

approximately $695 million in cash

Wonder if they go up to them with this is a briefcase?

Weird how there has been a trend to add 'in cash' to the end of each big deal.

M.

bigredshark · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:23

m4cc45 said:
Wonder if they go up to them with this is a briefcase?

Weird how there has been a trend to add 'in cash' to the end of each big deal.

M.

Previously a lot of deals where in stock, so it would have been $695m in symantec shares, which obviously isn't very attractive at the moment, so there are more cash deals going through. Messagelabs was also privately held, so a few people are going to be very rich indeed after that deal...

Mikey · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:26

bigredshark said:
A little surprising actually, symantec are getting big now, this on top of the Veritas aquisition a while back...

and Altiris etc etc.

Yup certainly a major player. They fixed Backup Exec when they took over Veritas

Burnsy2023 · 8 Oct 2008 at 14:31

Mikey said:
Yup certainly a major player. They fixed Backup Exec when they took over Veritas

That's debatable, the releases directly after the Veritas aquisition (early version 9/10) weren't very good. I think 10d was the first good symantec release.

Mikey · 8 Oct 2008 at 15:10

10 was crap, agreed 10d was the first improved product. I thought that was the version that had the Symantec input. I know the branding changed etc.

DustyMiller · 8 Oct 2008 at 18:03

I still think Backup Exec is crap. far to many little fixes for my liking.

But hey their indian call centre is Great

NOT !!!!!

Baz · 8 Oct 2008 at 19:59

Great, we use Messagelabs, and I have tried to stay away from Symantec except for Backup Exec....

I hope they don't screw it up, Messagelabs are very good at what they do.

Mikey · 8 Oct 2008 at 20:07

Baz said:
Great, we use Messagelabs, and I have tried to stay away from Symantec except for Backup Exec....

I hope they don't screw it up, Messagelabs are very good at what they do.

Postini I find very good and cheap. Part of Google now.

J1nxy · 9 Oct 2008 at 23:07

Symantec are a very cash rich company who every year when they release a new version symantec AV get a ton of money come in from the public etc who upgrade or renew. Share holders don't like having large amounts of cash sat in the bank they would rather it was being used for something, hence why Symantec go on a spending spree.

The more recent Symantec mail gateway producsts have been pretty good, and I suspect that they will just rebrand MessageLabs with something like "a Symantec Company"