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Symantec CEO, Gordon Eubanks, opens Beijing Office to meet demand for AntiVirus Products in PRC

Cupertino, Calif --August 12, 1998-- Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing, announced the opening of a new sales and support office in Beijing to tap the fast-growing demand for local language anti-virus and utility applications in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The office, officially opened today by Symantec's president and chief executive officer Gordon Eubanks, will manage and coordinate all of the company's sales and marketing activities in China and also provide guidance on the localization of products in simplified Chinese. The company will initially target high-end corporate businesses with a view to entering the mainstream desktop application market once it becomes fully established.

"There is already a huge awareness for virus protection in China with between five and ten local vendors battling for market share," Eubanks said. "They are very widely distributed with some having high brand awareness among personal users, although these local offerings tend to be very low in cost and purely of a detect and repair variety."

Eubanks added that because of the current market conditions, Symantec will not compete head on with these players, but instead focus on the corporate market.

Symantec currently offers through established distributors two simplified Chinese products in the PRC-Norton AntiVirus 4.0 for Windows 95 and Norton AntiVirus for NT Servers.

Both products incorporate Symantec's innovative Bloodhound technology, which provides the ability to detect and repair unknown and new viruses in real time, including fast-spreading macro viruses. Other state-of-the-art Symantec anti-virus technologies include Striker, for detecting complex polymorphic viruses; Macro Virus Protection (MVP) technology, for the complete protection against invasive macro viruses; and LiveUpdate, a Web-based system that enables customers to automatically receive the latest virus definitions.

"Symantec has invested heavily in the latest anti-virus technologies with a goal to providing complete protection from viruses at every level of the corporate network, including desktop, server and gateway," said Eubanks.

Symantec recently announced an alliance with IBM to produce a new range of anti-virus products, which will be marketed under the Norton AntiVirus brand. IBM will also recommend Norton AntiVirus to its customers as the anti-virus product of choice. Under the agreement Symantec will service all of IBM's existing anti-virus contracts, some of which extend to China and other Asian markets.

Symantec's office in Beijing will initially be staffed by ten people. The company is in the midst of a major recruitment program to boost this number to 15 by year end.

"Our China office will allow us to more effectively market Symantec products on the mainland," said Daniel Schneersohn, director, North Asia, for Symantec. "In the early stages we will focus on anti-virus products, but we will gradually introduce other utility applications including pcANYWHERE."

Symantec has already established a distribution network to help market its products in China. After analyzing the market potential for individual products in China, the company will localize more products in simplified Chinese.

In Asia, Symantec maintains offices in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, with regional operations directed from Australia. Three centers exist for the localization of products: Korea, Japan and Taiwan. To date, more than 15 products have been localized, including Norton AntiVirus, Norton Utilities, WinFax PRO and pcANYWHERE.

Forward looking statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above. Among these are the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments, the competitive environment in the software industry, dependence on other products, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems, and the importance of new Symantec products. Additional information concerning those and other factors is contained in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 3, 1998.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

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