Symantec Norton Antivirus Sales Outpace Overall Industry Growth For 1998

IDC expects Symantec's relationship with IBM and Intel to boost corporate revenues in the future

Cupertino, Calif, August 12, 1999 - Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that sales of Norton AntiVirus grew faster than the overall anti-virus software market and are expected to increase, according to "Internet Security Software: 1999 Worldwide Markets and Trends," a report released by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC also noted in the report that it expects Symantec's relationship with IBM and Intel to boost future corporate revenues.

According to IDC, 1998 anti-virus software worldwide revenues-at $1.0 billion-experienced a 28 percent growth over 1997. The anti-virus report contrasted Symantec's growth at 55 percent-almost double the growth of the overall market-with Network Associates growth at 14 percent.

"Symantec is moving beyond consumer anti-virus products. Starting in 1998, it started expanding into the corporate market. For 1999, we expect Norton AntiVirus to strengthen this trend with a heavier emphasis on server-based products. This strategy is synergistic with industry trends and customer demands because the next generation of viruses will focus on servers first and PCs secondarily," said Chris Christiansen, Program Director of IDC's Internet Security program.

According to IDC, anti-virus software will increasingly be sold as a networked, rather than a desktop, application. And, according to the report, it is especially important for anti-virus vendors to build management consoles for both anti-virus software and other security products. Enterprises with multiple sites are demanding a console for managing hundreds to thousands of anti-virus applications on distributed servers.

Symantec offers this technology through the Norton System Center. Norton System Center allows network administrators to easily and automatically deploy, configure, monitor, update, and comprehensively manage Symantec software. Norton System Center is the first anti-virus administration solution integrated into the highly flexible console framework provided by the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) version 1.0.

"We believe Symantec's multi-tier anti-virus offering demonstrates our continued commitment to our enterprise customers," said Enrique Salem, vice president of Symantec's Security and Assistance Business Unit. "Our partnerships with leading vendors in other areas of security and enterprise systems management are designed to ensure that we are delivering unmatched protection and content security."

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 2, 1999.

About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is a Framingham, Mass.-based analyst firm which assists information technology professionals in developing strategic plans, measuring market opportunity, anticipating technology trends, monitoring competition, selecting distribution channels and evaluating the impact of industry announcements.

About Symantec
Symantec is a world leader in Internet security technology and technology solutions that help companies manage and support workforces that use laptop computers and other mobile devices.

The company is a leading provider of software products for the consumer market and is rapidly growing its presence as a provider of solutions to enterprise organizations

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