Vision 2011: Symantec set for £1bn splurge on cloud and mobile buys

BARCELONA: Symantec is to spend in excess of $1bn this year boosting its capabilities in the cloud, mobile and virtual spaces, according to chief executive Enrique Salem, who boldly predicted that the company will become number one in each market.

Salem explained at a press conference at the annual Vision user event that Symantec plans to spend up to $1.25bn on acquisitions this year, having already paid $390m for e-discovery vendor Clearwell.

Symantec's acquisition of VeriSign's security business and back-up firm SwapDrive last year had worked well, according to Salem, bringing innovative technologies to an even wider audience.

"We'll look at a range of different things. We're interested in extending our portfolio to do more in mobility and cloud computing, and we'll look at what we can do in the virtualisation space," he said.

Salem was at pains to point out that Symantec has made big moves in the cloud and virtual markets already, claiming that the company's NetBackup and Backup Exec products lead the way among VMware back-up solutions

Symantec is also partnering with cloud pioneers such as Salesforce, eBay and Amazon to help build and secure their cloud infrastructures.

The Vision event also saw the release of a data loss prevention (DLP) product for the Apple iPad, along with O3, a new cloud platform combining access control, DLP, information security and reporting for data in public and private clouds.