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Eight with mega power

SYMANTEC

Chowing down on Veritas in a $13.5 billion acquisition wasn't enough to stave off Symantec's hunger for new and different technology. Three months after that deal closed in July, Symantec was off to the smorgasbord again, this time picking out BindView Development, Sygate Technologies and WholeSecurity - all for policy-enforcement purposes.

But technology via acquisition is not Symantec's only strategy. In 2005, the company introduced several all-in-one gateways for enterprise users. These combine VPN and firewall, anti-spam and anti-virus software, Web filtering and other security functions in a single appliance. It began offering a hosted e-mail service for filtering spam and viruses, and controlling compliance. Joining the trendsetters merging systems- and security-management tools, Symantec also unveiled a slew of client-management applications.

If Symantec gets its way, it will soon be known as a trendsetter in storage management too. Witness its Veritas acquisition and efforts to align data-storage management and security into a utility computing story. The company also has jumped into the fray with continuous data-protection software, a new type of storage technology that backs up data instantly for recovery at any point in time.

On the downside, Symantec's sterling reputation with Wall Street has slipped a bit in recent months, where questions about the Veritas strategy still loom large.