, founded in
1982 , is the world leader in providing solutions to help individuals and enterprises assure the security, availability, and integrity of their information. Headquartered in
Cupertino ,
California ., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries.
Symantec first became well-known as the publisher of
Q & A , an extraordinary dual-mode product that was both a
Word Processor and a
Database . During the
1990s , Symantec switched focus away from development of its own products and towards acquisition of other companies. An early purchase gave Symantec ownership of the famous
Norton Utilities , created in the mid
1980s by
Software Engineer Peter Norton . At one time Symantec was also known for its development tools, particularly the
THINK Pascal ,
THINK C , and packages that were particularly popular on the
Macintosh platform; they exited this business in the late 90s as competitors such as
Metrowerks gained significant market share.
In recent years, Symantec has been primarily known for its Norton-branded
Antivirus and
Utility Software . Products released under the Symantec name include
Norton AntiVirus ,
Norton Commander ,
Norton Internet Security ,
Norton Personal Firewall ,
Norton SystemWorks (which now contains the venerable Norton Utilities),
Norton AntiSpam ,
Norton GoBack (formerly Roxio GoBack), and
Norton Ghost (originally published by Binary Research).
Due to the recent acquisition of
PowerQuest , Symantec now produces the newest versions of
PartitionMagic , now called Norton PartitionMagic. This is true as well of the
Netware partition manager, PowerQuest
ServerMagic , now called Symantec ServerMagic.
Drive Image has become Norton Ghost, replacing the original program.
The organization (formerly '''Symantec Antivirus Research Center''') is one of the foremost antivirus and computer security research groups in the industry.
On December 16, 2004,
VERITAS and Symantec announced their plans for a merger. With VERITAS valued at $13.5 billion, it was the largest software industry merger to date.
Symantec's shareholders on
June 24 ,
2005 voted to approve the company's merger with
VERITAS , and the deal closed successfully on
July 2 nd.
July 5 ,
2005 was the first day of business for U.S. offices of the new, combined software company.
Symantec has acquired many companies which gave it the technologies that it uses to produce its current software. For the list of acquisitions, see
List Of Symantec Acquisitions .
Professional poker player
Barry Greenstein was a previous employee of Symantec.
