Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced
it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire IMlogic, Inc., the market
leader in enterprise software for instant messaging (IM). IMlogic's
technology provides a complete solution to control and secure public and
enterprise IM networks while ensuring compliance with regulatory and
corporate governance policies. The acquisition is expected to close
shortly after receiving customary regulatory approvals.
"Real-time communication solutions like instant messaging are powerful
collaboration tools that create a new attack vector for threats to enter an
enterprise network and new forms of digital communication with the same
government, legal, and business requirements to retain and retrieve as
email," said Enrique Salem, senior vice president of Security Products and
Solutions, Symantec. "With the best-of-breed instant messaging management
and compliance software from IMlogic, Symantec will be the first and only
vendor to offer a complete security and archiving solution to help
customers manage all their messaging requirements."
From shipping companies to hedge funds, businesses in almost every market
segment are adopting real-time, technologies like IM at a record pace to
improve their information sharing abilities and to decrease the time needed
to make business decisions. Consumers have already embraced it as a
communications tool and are sending more than 12 billion messages daily*,
with many users sending more IMs than e-mails. In addition, IM networks
are increasingly evolving beyond text messaging and file sharing and can
offer voice over IP (VoIP) services for free calling between clients. The
rapid adoption of IM networks by consumers and corporate users, combined
with evolving real-time communications functionality such as VoIP, makes
instant messaging a viable vehicle for malicious threats which can leverage
global IM directories to find new targets.
"Our customers have asked us for a holistic management tool to control all
real-time collaboration and keep it highly available, compliant, and
secure," said Francis deSouza, president and CEO, IMlogic. "They
understand the requirements for messaging security and a number of them are
already using our solutions in combination with Symantec solutions."
Extension of Strong Partnership
Prior to this announcement, Symantec and IMlogic have partnered on many
fronts. The two companies have partnered to deliver comprehensive solutions
for protecting IM from Internet threats and malware as well as from spam
delivered over IM. In addition, Symantec Security Response has had a
longstanding relationship with the IMlogic Threat Center, and research
analysts from both companies have collaborated jointly to address the
exponential growth of IM and P2P threats on the World Wide Web. Following
the acquisition, IMlogic's threat detection and remediation for IM will be
immediately integrated into Symantec's early warning and response system
and will augment the existing capabilities of Symantec Security Response.
In addition, Enterprise Vault, the market-leading email and content
archiving offering now from Symantec, has been integrated with IMlogic's IM
Manager since 2002 to provide a comprehensive messaging archiving solution.
This joint solution has addressed regulatory compliance and e-discovery
needs for many of the world's largest enterprises. Following the close of
the acquisition, components of the IMlogic technology will also be further
integrated as a part of the Enterprise Vault archiving solution.
IMlogic's Capabilities
IMlogic's IM Manager provides guaranteed IM policy enforcement for
regulatory compliance, centralized security controls, and enhanced
real-time communications for extending IM across the enterprise --
regardless of an organization's IM client of choice. It manages, secures,
logs, and archives all IM traffic with certified support for public and
enterprise IM networks, including AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, IBM Lotus Instant
Messaging, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Jabber, and others.
Its integration with the IMlogic Threat Center provides real-time antivirus
and anti-spam prevention for corporate IM usage. Similarly, its
integration with Enterprise Vault allows logged IM communication to be
archived and searched (alongside other archived content such as email) for
legal or compliance purposes.
The IMlogic Real-Time Threat Protection System (RTTPS) is the industry's
first IM threat protection system for predictive, automatic threat
identification, and prevention. IMlogic's patent-pending RTTPS technology
proactively prevents IM virus, worm, and malware outbreaks before they
occur. The RTTPS passively monitors all enterprise IM traffic and looks
for network anomalies and potential malicious behavior. Once a potential
threat is recognized, it identifies the new threat signature and stops the
potential outbreak by blocking it at the point of propagation.
About IMlogic, Inc.
IMlogic, Inc. is the market leader in enterprise software for instant
messaging, the world's fastest growing communications medium of all time.
The largest Fortune 1,000 companies across the financial services, energy,
healthcare, government, media, telecommunications, technology, and
manufacturing industries depend on IMlogic to manage, control, and secure
corporate IM usage, while satisfying compliance requirements associated
with real-time electronic communications. For more information on IMlogic
call 877-IMlogic or visit www.IMlogic.com.
About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in providing solutions to help individuals and
enterprises assure the security, availability, and integrity of their
information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations
in more than 40 countries. More information is available at
www.symantec.com.
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FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of U.S. federal securities laws, including expectations regarding the
closing of Symantec's acquisition of IMlogic and the integration of its
products and technologies into Symantec's products and solutions, that
involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual
results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press
release. Such risk factors include, among others, satisfaction of closing
conditions to the transaction, our ability to successfully integrate the
merged businesses and technologies, and customer demand for the
technologies and integrated product offerings. Actual results may differ
materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements contained
in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other
risk factors is contained in the Risk Factors sections of Symantec's most
recently filed Forms 10-K and 10-Q. Symantec assumes no obligation to
update any forward-looking statement contained in this press release.
* Source IDC (September 2005)
MEDIA CONTACT:
Linda Smith Munyan
Symantec Corporation
415-738-2686
linda_munyan@symantec.com
INVESTOR CONTACT:
Helyn Corcos
Symantec Corporation
408-517-8324
hcorcos@symantec.com
SOURCE: Symantec