With all of this activity, how is Symantec's business going to change? On one level, it looks like you might have to do a lot of acquisitions or at least hire more people?
We will continue to look for promising technologies in which customers have a real interest. Time to market is critical. That, typically, is the basis on how we look at an acquisition. We've had the great luxury of being able to grow our company at a decent rate during the technology downturn. When I joined, we were 2,300 people and $630m-something in revenue. This year, we will finish the year at $1.73bn in revenue, and we will have more than 5,000 employees.
Will you have to move deeper into consulting or professional services?
I think that there will come a day when Symantec's ability to help customers will have to expand beyond the current software and services we have. More and more, customers are starting to suggest to us that they need help with the technical integration of our products into their environment. We rely very heavily on our partners to do a large portion of that, but some of our customers are suggesting that we should do more. As for almost everything we do, it is driven by what customers want and by how we believe we can effectively manage and monetise it. Someday, we will probably expand our business in that regard.
This is a growing opportunity for everyone. What we think is important is that we get everyone to participate -- because there is no way we could ever deliver everything to everyone. There are channel partners that can fulfil a great part of that need.
Any thought of moving into the general-management tools area?
We announced two acquisitions, PowerQuest and On Technology, both of which add management capabilities for managing the configuration of a device and the distribution software. Those are important technologies, synergistic with our security products.
I wonder if you could give us a report card for different players in the security industry. First, businesses and home consumers. After the MSBlast worm and the August of hell, are they finally on board with the message that they need to constantly monitor and update their systems? Is that the case?
I think that the awareness on the consumer level is growing, and attacks like we had in August raise the profile of the threats. What we've seen over the course of the last three to four years is that every time there is a highly publicised attack, there is a rash of consumers and small businesses that run into the marketplace to acquire technologies. There is a step function every 15 to 18 months. Hence, the penetration rate of the technology is getting better and better.
What we have to do is make sure that the technology is easy to use. One of the simple things we did on our consumer product is that if you are on the Internet, we will look to see that you have the most current definitions, and in the background, we will update your virus files. That way, you won't have to think about it. Security should be invisible.
