Yeah, I don't get Symantec, either...HuaMantec?

Alan beat me in blogging about something I discussed @ our Interop Blogger's dinner last week, namely the absolute bewildering announcement made by Symantec:

Symantec Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. are forming a joint venture company to develop and distribute security and storage appliances to global telecommunications carriers and enterprises.

The joint venture will help operators and enterprises address challenges arising from maintaining IP networks and IT systems that support a growing number of connections. This requires balancing increasing performance and availability requirements with system security and data integrity.

Initially the offering will include security and storage appliances addressing those issues. The new company will be headquartered in Chengdu, China, with Huawei owning 51 percent of the joint venture and Symantec owning 49 percent.

Huawei will contribute its telecommunications storage and security businesses including its integrated supply chain and integrated product development management practices. Additionally, the new company will have access to Huawei’s intellectual property (IP) licenses, research and development capabilities.

Symantec will contribute some of its enterprise storage and security software licenses, working capital, and its management expertise into the new company. Symantec will also contribute US$150 million toward the joint venture’s growth and expansion.

The joint venture is expected to close late in the calendar year, pending required regulatory and governmental approvals.

What he hell, over!?  Perhaps they forgot about this announcement almost around the same time last year wherein 'twas quoted:

The announcement is evidence that Symantec is shifting its strategy away from being a "one stop shop" for security wares, and will focus on lucrative security management and services, said John Pescatore, a vice president at Gartner.

Symantec announced the changes internally yesterday, saying it was a "change in its investment strategy in the network and gateway security business." The news was accompanied by lay-offs affecting approximately 80 employees in the company’s SGS unit, a company spokeswoman said.

...after the 3Com buyout of the last venture between 3Com and Huawei, perhaps they're going to pick up the pieces?  Are we going to see a yellow version of the M.I.A. 3Com M160 since they're not doing anything with it?

Wow.

Perhaps the first thing they can do for the Chinese market is to fix the Symantec Autoupdate feature:

According to reports from the Chinese state media last night, an automatic update to the Chinese version of the Norton anti-virus software sent out last Friday identified two critical Windows XP files as malware and deleted them.

As a result, millions of Chinese PC users have had to re-install their operating systems or, if they have planned ahead (and are lucky), used the RESTORE function from the XP emergency recovery menu.

China Daily says that many companies are threatening to sue Symantec for large sums of money for lost working time. Symantec has reportedly made formal apology on Wednesday.

/Hoff