Symantec doubles GITEX investment for 2007

GITEX, one of the top three information and communication technology (ICT) exhibitions in the world, generated more than 3,000 sales enquiries for Symantec in 2006 and the company views the exhibition as an important component in its business cycle.

"The Middle East is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for Symantec," said Kevin Isaac, regional director for Middle East and Africa. "An integral part of Symantec's ongoing success in the region is its ability to develop and maintain strong relationships with its partners and customers and GITEX helps us do this in a huge way by acting as an 'ICT majlis'.

"GITEX gives my team the ability to work alongside Symantec's partners for five days and engage with customers on a level where we can collectively listen to their concerns and develop integrated solutions to build strength in Symantec's offering to the region."

Isaac added that Symantec's theme for GITEX 2007 is "Combine and Complement", touching on both Symantec's channel strategy for its partners in the Middle East and its recent product developments that combine and integrate technologies from its strategic acquisitions.

"We have some really exciting enterprise solutions to talk to customers about this year with the recent launch of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, which combines award-winning technology from Symantec, Sygate, WholeSecurity and Veritas; Symantec Network Access Control 11.0, and Storage United, a new business initiative to help organisations integrate their storage environments,"

said Isaac.
Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 delivers the essential security technologies of antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, intrusion prevention and device control together with advanced threat protection in a single endpoint agent, managed by a single console to improve protection and lower total cost of ownership.

Symantec Network Access Control 11.0 is an optional module tightly integrated with Symantec Endpoint Protection to help customers discover and evaluate the status of endpoints, provision the appropriate network access, and remediate issues to ensure security policies are met.

"Combining and complementing is the way ahead for Symantec in its offering to its customers," added Isaac. "Our customers are looking for lower cost of ownership, ease of use and to deal with fewer vendors. Most importantly they seek a holistic approach to security and availability. That's the direction Symantec is taking on all business fronts."

At the Symantec stand partners will demonstrate solutions across all disciplines including Windows data protection, comprehensive threat management, information risk management, IT compliance and Data Centre Foundation. Symantec will also show the strength of its consumer brand with Norton 360, the latest all-in-one security, availability and performance enhancement solution, and Norton Mobile Security, a tool for protecting mobile devices from Internet, messaging and e-mail threats.