John Thompson Symantec | U.S.
When most people hire a security guard, they don't expect him to be a computer programmer and a secretary as well. But that, or its electronic equivalent, is the range of services Symantec provided at the end of the millennium. Founded in 1982, the Cupertino, California, firm was best known for its Norton AntiVirus software for consumers and small businesses. But during the dotcom boom, it was also hawking software for creating Java applications and managing business and personal contacts. Investors and big corporate clients were confused, so they gave Symantec a wide berth.
Enter John Thompson, an IBM veteran of 28 years who became Symantec CEO in 1999, the first African American to head a major U.S. software company. Convinced that Internet security was the most profitable business to be in, Thompson sold off the extraneous software divisions and replaced his entire sales team and nearly all his vice presidents. (Thompson's favorite movie: The Godfather. ) Then he started buying stuff like ON Technology, a $100-million infrastructure-management company and he massively expanded the Live Update service, which for an annual subscription automatically downloads the latest antivirus software to your computer. "Security is a process, not a product," he says. In other words, Thompson, an avid amateur chef, is constantly tweaking Symantec's recipe.
The next few years saw a virtual plague: the Love Bug and SoBig spread faster than any other viruses in computer history, becoming household names. Since then virus writers have become terrifyingly shrewd, routinely infecting thousands of PCs, often without users being aware they've been hit. Although damage estimates depend on vague definitions of lost productivity, one report put their cost of these malicious bugs to global business last year at $55 billion; in 2004, a single virus the Sasser worm wreaked an estimated $500 million in damage.
The corporate world's losses are the security sector's gains. Symantec's sales rose from $634 million when Thompson took over to $1.9 billion in fiscal 2004, and more than half of the firm's revenue now comes from corporate sales. The company's stock has also soared over 470% since Thompson took control. "Never in my wildest dreams could I have forecast what unfolded," he says, "but we were well positioned for it." Thompson wasn't adverse to cashing in; he made $14 million selling his options in May.
Thompson also announced in May that he was buying Brightmail, an e-mail security firm Symantec had been investing in since 2000. Purveyors of spam are even more cunning than virus writers, and Brightmail sends updated antispam defenses to its client computers at least once an hour. "It's a very natural marriage," Thompson says. "We'd been dating for a long time." Assuming the sale goes through, Symantec will likely incorporate Brightmail's technology in Live Update. Sifting your mail for unwanted stuff while protecting your front door now that's something you would expect from a security guard. By Chris Taylor/San Francisco
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