McAfee rejects Symantec claim about market share
Posted by D. Schoombie 26 January, 2012
BOSTON (Reuters) – Security software program maker McAfee rejected a claim that a number of huge corporate buyers had lately switched over to using goods from rival Symantec Corp.
Symantec Chief Economic Officer James Beer told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday that his business was taking share in the anti-virus computer software market away from McAfee, which was purchased by chipmaker Intel Corp in February.
Beer stated that a number of huge McAfee customers had switched to Symantec throughout the quarter, but declined to identify them.
McAfee Senior Vice President for Finance and Accounting Edward Hayden told Reuters on Thursday that the claim was false. He added that his business had booked a record amount of business in its December quarter, signed its biggest deal ever and closed far more sales over ũ million than it had in any single period.
"We are not aware of any main account that we lost to Symantec during the quarter," he mentioned.
Intel bought McAfee in a ů.7 billion deal meant to spur growth at the world's top rated chipmaker and also help it greater safeguard its items from hackers. Investors are nevertheless waiting to see regardless of whether that bet will yield outcomes.
McAfee laid off about three percent of its workers, or about 250 employees, in December.
Hayden stated that the organization is now adding staff in priority areas including mobile technology, cloud computing and network security.
He mentioned he expects the staff to return to its pre-layoff level of about 7,000 by the end of the first quarter.
(Reporting By Jim Finkle Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
