Looking Back: Top 10 Security Stories of 2009

McAfee Reinvigorates the Rivalry with Symantec

This year Symantec and McAfee reignited their old rivalry to levels not seen since pre-Veritas days. One only need look at Symantec’s sneaky tactic in Vegas during McAfee’s annual Focus Security Conference to see where this was going.  Symantec painted the town yellow in anticipation of wooing away McAfee’s partners and customers–and probably to stick it to a newly recharged competitor.

On the product side, McAfee’s July purchase of MX Logic for $170 million helped the company solidify its security SaaS model and laid the groundwork for new opportunities for the channel to offer a wider base of products with that all-important recurring revenue model, putting greater pressure on Symantec. And from a strategy perspective, it brought on some heavyweights to help guide its channel strategy: Fernando Quintero as vice president of channels for the Americas and Alex Thurber as senior vice president of global channel sales