Symantec and Veritas ARC Scores Highlight A Slippery Slope

Then there were some issues in the field, most notably a transition to a tele-management system. Certain partners who once counted on a Symantec-badged employee to help manage their relationship with the vendor were directed to an online, tele-managed system, which led to some disappointment. Symantec had reassigned certain field personnel who once called on channel accounts to make calls into small and medium-sized business on behalf of partners, which, in theory, should have led to improved satisfaction once their efforts started to kick in and deals started flowing to business partners.

Turning to the VARBusiness ARC scores for Symantec's Security Management software and Veritas' Enterprise Storage Management software, there was a dramatic decline in satisfaction scores from the solution provider partners surveyed. Symantec's overall category ARC satisfaction score has declined 12 points in just three years, from 76 in 2002 to 64 in 2004. Veritas has also witnessed a large descent in overall ARC scores, though slightly less dramatic. From an overall score of 71 in enterprise storage management in 2002, Veritas dropped seven points to 64 this past year.

On the other hand, Symantec was the leading ARC scorer, ranked number one, in the Security Management Software category, two years in a row (2002 and 2003). In the 2004 ARC, Symantec slipped to fourth place scoring only a 63, behind leaders CA and Cisco, which tied for first with a score of 72, and Trend Micro (68). After ranking first and second for most criteria measured in the 2002 and 2003 ARC, Symantec experienced declining scores and subsequently lower rankings for the majority of criteria in the product, service, partnering and loyalty subcategories measured in 2004.

As for Veritas, it won the Enterprise Storage Management segment in the 2002 ARC, leading with a score of 71. It slipped to third place in 2003 (68). The company regained ground, this past year, moving up to the number 2 slot, with an overall score of 64. Two areas when Veritas has faced consistent challenges are in the partnering subcategory, within their partner portal and sales partnering areas.