please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message symantec corporation symantec headquarters in mountain view california type public traded as nasdaq symc s & p 500 component industry computer software founded march 1 1982 ; 34 years ago 1982 03 01 sunnyvale california u.s. founder gary hendrix headquarters 350 ellis street mountain view california u.s. 1 area served worldwide key people daniel schulman chairman greg clark ceo products norton internet security data loss protection advanced threat protection and other products revenue us 3.6 billion 2016 2 operating income us 457 million 2016 2 profit us 2.488 billion 2016 2 total assets us 11.767 billion 2016 2 total equity us 3.676 billion 2016 2 number of employees 11 000 july 2016 3 divisions list of divisions website www.symantec.com symantec corporation s m n t k commonly known as symantec is an american technology company headquartered in mountain view california united states . the company produces software for security storage backup and availability and offers professional services to support its software . netcraft assesses symantec including subsidiaries as the most used certification authority . symantec is a fortune 500 company and a member of the s & p 500 stock market index . the company also has development centers in pune chennai and bengaluru india . on october 9 2014 symantec declared it would split into two independent publicly traded companies by the end of 2015 . one company would focus on security the other on information management . on january 29 2016 the information management business was spun off as veritas technologies and sold to the carlyle group . 4 the name symantec represents a combination of the words syntax semantics and technology . 5 contents 1 history 1.1 1982 to 1989 1.2 1990 to 1999 1.3 2000 to present 1.4 demerger 2 norton brand 3 mergers and acquisitions 4 security concerns and controversies 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit 1982 to 1989 edit founded in 1982 by gary hendrix with a national science foundation grant symantec was originally focused on artificial intelligence related projects including a database program . hendrix hired several stanford university natural language processing researchers as the company s first employees among them barry greenstein professional poker player and developer of the word processor component within q & a . hendrix also hired jerry kaplan entrepreneur and author as a consultant to build the in ram database for q & a. 6 in 1984 it became clear that the advanced natural language and database system that symantec had developed could not be ported from dec minicomputers to the pc . this left symantec without a product but with expertise in natural language database query systems and technology . as a result later in 1984 symantec was acquired by another smaller software startup company c & e software founded by denis coleman and gordon eubanks and headed by eubanks . c & e software was in the process of developing an integrated file management and word processing program . the merged company retained the name symantec and eubanks became its chairman vern raburn the former ceo of the original symantec remained as ceo of the combined company . soon after the merger eubanks and raburn recruited rod turner into symantec as its executive vice president for marketing sales product management and international business . turner had been in interviews and discussions with c & e software in early 1984 about becoming the president of c & e. these discussions had ended when the two companies merged . the new symantec combined the file management and word processing functionality that c & e had planned and added an advanced natural language query system designed by gary hendrix and engineered by dan gordon that set new standards for ease of database query and report generation . the natural language system was named the intelligent assistant . turner chose the name of q & a for symantec s flagship product in large part because the name lent itself to use in a short easily merchandised logo . brett walter designed the user interface of q & a brett walter director of product management . q & a was released in november 1985 . during 1986 vern raburn and gordon eubanks swapped roles and eubanks became ceo and president of symantec while raburn became its chairman . subsequent to this change raburn had little involvement with symantec and in a few years time eubanks added the chairmanship to his other roles . after a slow start for sales of q & a in the fall of 1985 and spring of 1986 turner signed up a new advertising agency called elliott dickens embarked on an aggressive new advertising campaign and came up with the six pack program in which all symantec employees regardless of role went on the road training and selling dealer sales staff nationwide in the united states . turner named it six pack because employees were to work six days a week see six dealerships per day train six sales representatives per store and stay with friends free or at motel 6 . simultaneously a promotion was run jointly with sofsell which was symantec s exclusive wholesale distributor in the united states for the first year that q & a was on the market . this promotion was very successful in encouraging dealers to try q & a. during this time symantec was advised by jim lally and john doerr both were board members of symantec at that stage kleiner perkins caufield & byers that if symantec would cut its expenses and grow revenues enough to achieve cash flow break even then kpcb would back the company in raising more venture capital . to accomplish this the management team worked out a salary reduction schedule where the chairman and the ceo would take zero pay all vice presidents would take a 50 % pay cut and all other employees pay was cut by 15 % . two employees were laid off . eubanks also negotiated a sizable rent reduction on the office space the company had leased in the days of the original symantec . these expense reductions combined with strong international sales of q & a enabled the company to attain break even . because all team members were sharing in the suffering of reduced income and because of the unifying effects of the six pack program symantec s morale during this period was very high the more so when one considers that the company had a very uncertain future at this time . citation needed the significantly increased traction for q & a from this re launch grew symantec s revenues substantially along with early success for q & a in international markets uniquely a german version was shipped three weeks after the united states version and it was the first software in the world that supported german natural language following turner s having placed emphasis on establishing international sales distribution and multiple language versions of q & a from initial shipment . in 1985 rod turner negotiated the publishing agreement with david whitney for symantec s second product which turner named noteit an annotation utility for lotus 1 2 3 . it was evident to turner that noteit would confuse the dealer channel if it was launched under the symantec name because symantec had built up interest by that stage in q & a but not yet shipped it and because the low price for the utility would not be initially attractive to the dealer channel until demand had been built up . turner felt that the product should be marketed under a unique brand name . turner and gordon e. eubanks jr. then chairman of symantec corporation agreed to form a new division of symantec and eubanks delegated the choice of name to turner . turner chose the name turner hall publishing to be a new division of symantec devoted to publishing third party software and hardware . the objective of the division was to diversify revenues and accelerate the growth of symantec . turner chose the name turner hall publishing using his last name and that of dottie hall director of marketing communications in order to convey the sense of a stable long established company . 7 8 turner hall publishing s first offering was note it a notation utility add in for lotus 1 2 3 which was developed by david whitney and licensed to symantec . 9 10 its second product was the turner hall card which was a 256k ram half slot memory card initially made to inexpensively increase the available memory for symantec s flagship product q & a. the turner hall division also marketed the card as a standalone product . turner hall s third product also a 1 2 3 add in was sqz a lotus 1 2 3 spreadsheet compression utility developed by chris graham synex systems . 11 in the summer of 1986 eubanks and turner recruited tom byers from digital research to expand the turner hall publishing product family and lead the turner hall effort . by the winter of 1986 87 the turner hall publishing division had achieved success with noteit the turner hall card and sqz . the popularity of these products while contributing a relatively small portion of revenues to symantec conveyed the impression that symantec was already a diversified company and indeed many industry participants were under the impression that symantec had acquired turner hall publishing . in 1987 byers recruited ted schlein into the turner hall product group to assist in building the product family and in marketing . revenues from q & a and from symantec s early launch into the international marketplace combined with turner hall publishing generated the market presence and scale that enabled symantec to make its first merger acquisition in february 1987 that of breakthrough software maker of the timeline project management software for dos . because this was the first time that symantec had acquired a business that had revenues inventory and customers eubanks chose to change nothing at breakthrough software for six months and the actual merger logistics started in the summer of 1987 with turner being appointed by eubanks as general manager of the timeline business unit turner was made responsible for the successful integration of the company into symantec and ongoing growth of the business with p & l. there was a heavy emphasis placed on making the minimum disruption by eubanks and turner . soon after the acquisition of timeline breakthrough software eubanks reorganized symantec structuring the company around product centric groups each having its own development quality assurance technical support and product marketing functions and a general manager with profit and loss responsibility . sales finance and operations were centralized functions that were shared . this structure lent itself well to symantec s further growth through mergers and acquisitions . eubanks made turner general manager of the new timeline product group and simultaneously of the q & a product group and made tom byers general manager of the turner hall product group . turner continued to build and lead the company s international business and marketing for the whole company . at the timeline product group turner drove strong marketing promotion and sales programs in order to accelerate momentum . by 1989 this merger was very successful product group morale was high timeline development continued apace and the increased sales and marketing efforts applied built the timeline into the clear market lead in pc project management software on dos . both the q & a and timeline product groups were healthily profitable . the profit stream and merger success set the stage for subsequent merger and acquisition activity by the company and indeed funded the losses of some of the product groups that