Symantec opens up for third parties

Symantec wants to improve interoperability between third-party products and its security tools

Symantec has announced a new Open Collaborative Architecture (OCA) platform and a developer programme designed to get third parties involved in its product releases.

The OCA is an open, standards-based set of guidelines and technologies that enables collaboration across Symantec's product portfolio and third-party solutions.

The new initiatives are designed to improve interoperability between third-party products and the vendor's security and disaster recovery tools, as well as with the Symantec Management Platform, based on technology acquired with the purchase of IT management specialist Altiris.

They offer standards-based guidance and technologies to which interested parties can refer when developing solutions, and should help maximise third-party investments, according to Symantec.

"IT organisations often have the right people, tools and best practices in place but lack the resources to connect them in a way that provides business value," said Brad Kingsbury, senior vice president of endpoint security and management at Symantec.

"The OCA allows the IT industry to move beyond discreet management boundaries into an area of collaboration."

Complementing the collaboration platform is the Symantec Developer Platform, which offers access to some of the firm's most popular technologies, such as Symantec Endpoint Protection, Backup Exec System Recovery, Veritas Configuration Manager and Data Loss Prevention.

By granting developers access to the platform, Symantec hopes to ensure that as new technologies arise they will be able to integrate with its own products. Dell is already planning to standardise on the platform, the firms said.