Symantec.com

News Release

1,500 Companies Say "Give Me Norton AntiVirus"

Cupertino, Calif --August 27, 1998-- Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that 1,500 companies have committed to transitioning from IBM's antivirus product to Norton AntiVirus.

Symantec launched its transition program in June shortly after announcing its alliance with IBM to integrate antivirus technologies and create a new Norton AntiVirus product range.

"We are well ahead of our schedule to transition IBM customers," says Enrique Salem, vice president of Symantec's Security and Assistance Business Unit. "We are already recognizing revenue that we had not expected to see until later this year and in 1999. The response from our new customers has been tremendous. We have contacted every one of our new customers to discuss their transition to Norton AntiVirus and the overwhelming majority of those that have not already committed to moving to Norton AntiVirus say they fully intend to."

Commenting on the progress of Symantec's transition program, financial analyst Alex Kotlyer of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, said: "Symantec and IBM are very clearly making their alliance work. They are ahead of schedule in terms of getting customers onto Norton AntiVirus and are benefiting from the early revenue. Companies are responding to the combination of the quality and high protection levels of Norton AntiVirus, IBM's recommendation to move to Symantec and the smooth transition program that Symantec has put in place."

Chris Christiansen at IDC agrees: "Symantec's alliance with IBM always had great potential. The conversion of so many customers so quickly is evidence that the potential is being realized. Symantec is strengthening its position as one of the leaders in the market."

Phyllis Byrne, vice president, IBM distributed systems services at IBM added: "We entered into this partnership to both provide our customers an outstanding antivirus solution and to maximize the market reach of IBM's industry-leading digital immune system technology."

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 and the quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 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.

About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping business innovate. IBM Software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM Software is through the IBM Software home page at http://www.software.ibm.com. Additional resources for the news media may be found at http://www.ibm.com/Press.

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