Symantec prepares for plunge into SaaS

The focus will be on consumer security before extending the security SaaS model across the full enterprise portfolio

Symantec Asia Pacific vice president David Sykes has confirmed his company will move to offering software as a subscription-based service, with new enterprise “buying” plans expected to be ironed out within the next 12 months.

The vendor will use perceived Software as a Service (SaaS) demand in the consumer space to give the idea a leg-up for enterprise firms, as evident with the forthcoming release of the Norton 360 package.

Sykes says that ultimately, storage will be part of the SaaS offering, but the company is concentrating on addressing consumer security before extending the security software-as-a-service model across the full enterprise portfolio.

“Certainly, enterprise firms are going to be interested in the model as a way to reduce cost of ownership, but I think we will see consumers lead the charge as broadband adoption increases, so we will take that momentum and expand it for the enterprise,” Sykes says.

“Basically, it is a move to a subscription-type model — rather than an up-front licence payment. We will use regular monthly or quarterly payments, with the enterprise space taking a different order of magnitude, based on usage, maintenance and content. But at the moment, we are focused on delivering SaaS for consumers first and gradually rolling the service out to enterprise customers.

“We are still working on a lot of the details for the enterprise side. It is going to be late this year [before] we have finalised our new buying programmes, as well as the licensing models supporting different licence agreements for Veritas and the old Symantec, as one single set of terms and conditions. These will be worked on gradually from November onwards.”

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