Symantec fires CEO Steve Bennett: To lose 1 chief is unfortunate, to lose 2 is OK, apparently Symantec has fired its second CEO in two years: the company's chief exec, president and former board chairman Steve Bennett was today shown the door after less than 18 months on the job. "We recognize Steve's contributions to Symantec, including developing and leading a series of successful initiatives focused on …
My prediction regardless of who their next CEO is is that their products will still be intrusive (custom OS hooks all around), bloaty, and bring your system to a crawl after several months (especially if you go with the default install options). Been the case for the last decade and some things never change.
Symantec - "to enhance our position as a market leader."
El Reg article - "the troubled security and storage giant."
I wonder which one might be true.
Come to think about it, I've seen much less bundling of Norton lately, whereas McAfee and others are still very conspicuous in bundles and corporate installs (that I have noticed).
Yes, the bloatware that is not practical has claimed another.....corporate muppetry at its finest here....its the product not the people that is failing....i for one advise strongly against bloated and nanny like software from this vendor as you may as well bin a notebook after installing.....
Their sales have to be in the toilet. The only time people would get the security suite is by buying a new computer with Symantec/Norton as part of the crapware.. However, Windows HATE is discouraging the purchasers, because the average person cannot find anything like documents or programs, let alone the "off" button..
Do not blame the current CEO, but that guy who is on Microsoft's board for the reduction in sales. Microsoft came up with the new OS, which they claim is the safest, most bulletproof Windows ever. Why run the bloatware when you have Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender for free? It is less likely that they will identify the kernel as a virus as Symantec occasionally does.
He was actually trying to fix the company. He said he didnt care what the shareholders wanted and that it would take time to fix the mess. but he was moving in the right direction. He made lots of good changes apparantly. This is the problem with a company like that. It's all for the shareholders and the execs who have lots of stock - he obviously wasnt making them enough money. Too bad for symantec.
after 8 years at symc, my feeling is that the frustration felt by a large proportion of the sales team
seems to be (at last) shared by the board.
product roadmaps for 3 years with little innovation. compensation schemes and targets that are late and unrealistic. channel program that is still not announced after more than a year of empty promises.
expect a bunch of product sell offs in the near future. backup exec first to go.
my missus works for symantec in business critical.
please note that norton is the bastard child. most employees of symantec are embarrassed to be associated with it.
"compensation schemes and targets that are late and unrealistic."
sales...money..shareholders.....
the guy was trying to turn the ship around from the mess it had become. the stupid idea that they should release a product update every year even if it didnt do anything different from the previous year and maybe even had functionality that used to work and they dicked with it, didnt test it properly (or more likely werent able to given the time constraints) and then it didnt work etc.
from the techs and staff that i know through my missus (im not personally employed by them and i hate norton with a passion), they thought he was doing a good job. getting rid of useless management levels and trying to get them to a stage where their product worked, and if it did, then not to mess with it.
just sayin'.
Bennett was a changer that was moving the needle and dumping the numties and fat 1:3 sales management layers.
Sorting a tech corp takes time. Refactoring products is a long term process
esp when the cash cows are still milking.
Dumping Steve is a step back to the quarter-at-a-time pointy hair management style.
It would be absolutely bleedin' priceless if he made a 'How to Uninstall Symantec Antivirus' video, in a similar style to John McAfee's classic How to Uninstall McAfee Antivirus (Warning - NSFW.)
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