VARs Concerned Over Fate Of Veritas Tools

The potential merger could be worth at least $13 billion, according to a New York Times article published Tuesday.

Executives at Symantec, Cupertino, Calif., said it was policy not to comment on rumor. Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas could not be reached for comment.

Jeff Brown, director of business development at NSA Services, Stoughton, Mass., said given the popularity and large install base of Veritas' software, he was concerned about how the Veritas technology would end up being used by Symantec.

"When a product gets acquired, particularly a popular one, I usually say that's where many of products go to die," said Brown.

Brown also expressed concern about Symantec being able to keep its focus in the security realm and perhaps trying to become all things to all customers.

Symantec CEO John Thompson recently said the vendor is set on making itself less of a pure-play client security vendor and more of a data management and "information integrity" vendor with greater appeal to C-level executives. Symantec has been in acquisition mode recently, buying security solution provider @Stake and antispam vendor Brightmail.

Bill Whalen, sales and marketing manager at RJS Software Systems, Minneapolis, applauded the possible acquisition as a bold move to capture more market share in the backup and recovery space, a market that Symantec has already begun to expand into with its February acquisition of On Technology.

"If you want to capture business, you have to capture market," said Whalen.

But Whalen echoed concerns that Symantec could lose its focus on its core security business if it begins dabbling too quickly in the storage market. "From a storage perspective, storage is crucial to a security and defense plan. But Symantec can't take their eye off the security ball," he said.

David Tan, CTO of Chips Computer Consulting, Lake Success, N.Y., said of Symantec's plans to acquire Veritas: "It obviously shows they want to provide the end-to-end solution, including storage and disaster recovery. That's what Symantec needed, and that's what they'd get with Veritas."

Veritas has a strong channel and is a good partner, so the channel should benefit if the acquisition is played out correctly, said Tan.

"From a channel perspective, it's a good thing," said Tan.

Veritas shares were up $3, or 12 percent, to $28.16 in early morning trading. Symantec shares, meanwhile, were down 13 percent, or $4.27, to $28.55.