When one security vendor merges with another or is acquired by a
larger IT provider, the parties involved always tout the benefits
customers can expect -- better help desk services, a wider array of
management tools and the tighter integration of security into the
larger infrastructure. Unfortunately for some users, those benefits
don't always materialize.
 | | | | | When I heard of the acquisition,
I was worried about whether talent would be depleted and whether
service would wither.
Franklin Warlick,
senior messaging systems administratorCox
Communications |
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SearchSecurity.com recently interviewed IT professionals whose
security tools passed from one vendor to another to see if they're
still happy with the products. Some are pleased with the end
result, while others say they're frustrated by a drop-off in
quality and support.
One unhappy customer is Farhad Karampour, an IT engineer with
Newton, Mass.-based MIS Alliance Corp., which provides IT
management services to small- and mid-sized businesses. Many of his
clients use Symantec Corp.'s Backup Exec, a network-enabled backup
product the Cupertino, Calif.-based antivirus giant acquired when
it
purchased storage company Veritas Software Corp. in late
2004.
Before Symantec took over, Karampour had no trouble renewing his
clients' support licenses and found that the people working for
Veritas' help desk could almost always help him resolve a problem.
It's been the opposite scenario under Symantec, he said.
"The technicians handling calls regarding Symantec Backup Exec
don't seem to be as knowledgeable as when this software was
supported by Veritas," he said. "It takes an average of 45 minutes
or more to get a support technician on the phone."
One day, after waiting 45 minutes and then getting a technician
who couldn't help him address his problem, Karampour asked to speak
to a manager. He said he was disconnected after spending about a
minute on hold.
He said it's been a nightmare trying to resolve the licensing
issues, including the process for accessing the product
installation keys. "To receive the license key for some of our
clients, I have spent hours without any resolutions and the final
answer during the support call is for Symantec to follow up and
send an email with the requested information," he said. "The
software continues to do a good job. The problem is the
service."
Karampour believes Symantec bit off more than it could chew when
it took over the product and that its technicians were not properly
trained to deal with Veritas-related questions.
Symantec acknowledges problems
Symantec doesn't dispute that there have been problems. Last
November, Veritas and Symantec enterprise resource planning systems
were merged, resulting in new licensing, ordering and support
programs that will ultimately streamline customer and partner
processes, a company spokeswoman said in an email exchange. But in
the short term, she admitted, the waters have been choppy.
"As expected with an infrastructure change of this magnitude, we
are working through a period of transition with our partners and
customers," she said.
In some cases, she said the problems are more cultural in that
customers need to learn new procedures or processes to use the
merged systems. In other cases, customers are running into
technical problems on Symantec's end.
"However, Symantec has continued to process orders throughout
this transition, and processed more orders in the month after the
merger than were processed the month before or in the same month
last year," she said.
She said Symantec is taking specific steps to resolve all
issues. This includes increasing the capacity of its customer
support lines and keeping in touch with the community via the
company's Web sites, outbound emails and account-specific calls.
The company is also working to resolve invoicing and reporting
issues on an individual basis and is giving customers more time to
make the transition.
"We have corrected the most serious issues already and are
working with our partners to reconcile reports to ensure that
processed orders were properly shipped, fulfilled and invoiced,"
she said.
A smoother transition
While the transition from Veritas to Symantec has been difficult
for Karampour, other IT professionals report that their product
support has improved or stayed the same following the acquisition
or merger of their vendors.
Franklin Warlick said he was initially terrified to learn that
his messaging security vendor,
CipherTrust Inc., was being acquired by Secure Computing Corp.,
a San Jose-Calif.-based provider of security appliances, firewalls,
and programs for identity and access management and content
management and filtering.
"CipherTrust was a huge success story here," said Warlick,
senior messaging systems administrator for Cox Communications, a
multi-service broadband communications company with approximately 6
million customers across the United States. "Support was good. We
had no complaints. When I heard of the acquisition, I was worried
about whether talent would be depleted and whether service would
wither."
His concerns proved to be unfounded, and today he happily uses
Secure Computing's IronMail product to keep spam and other
malicious content out of the company's 30,000 email inboxes.
A few weeks after the acquisition was announced, Secure
Computing invited Warlick and other customers to a roundtable
discussion where he was able to meet the CEO and get a better idea
of the company's intentions.
"I saw they were keeping a lot of CipherTrust people at top
levels," he said. "Once I saw it wasn't just about buying the
product and releasing the people I quickly relaxed."
He said his product has not changed since the acquisition,
though he's optimistic the company will add functionality to help
enterprises combat Web-based image spam. He has also used the
customer support system two or three times since the merger without
incident.
Looking ahead, Warlick hopes Secure Computing will add more
reporting capabilities to the product. "A better interface for
customer reporting is something we hope for, and I was told it's
coming," he said.
Too soon to tell
For others, it's simply too soon to tell if the quality of their
security products and services will change as the result of a
merger or acquisition.
Bryan Sowell, authentication services engineer for a large
Fortune 500 company, is an RSA Security customer who has seen no
change since the company was
acquired by storage giant EMC last summer. He said it's
probably too soon to tell what the overall impact will be, but for
now he's cautiously optimistic.
"I haven't seen any change in the service or effectiveness of
the RSA solutions," he said. "EMC did not have any competing
products with RSA, though, so there were none of the traditional
issues associated with acquisitions."