back to article Symantec bundles CEO out the door, parachutes in chairman

Software jack-of-all-trades Symantec has replaced dapper CEO Enrique Salem with board chairman Steve Bennett. Salem, we think, got the bullet for failing to conquer the mobile security market, his handling of the Backup Exec outrage, and his humdrum financial performance. The company's profit dipped this quarter, the first …

COMMENTS

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  1. John A Blackley

    The root of all evil

    $1.6bn in sales, $172m in profits - per quarter! - and this is the 'doldrums'?

    The pursuit of ever-increasing profit is a destructive game, in the end. Companies who are never satisfied with their profits are doomed, ultimately, to fail.

    The love of money, and all that.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's a shame, he was a nice bloke when he spoke to us in Gloucester.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      of course, all opinions are those of my own, and not of my ex-employer.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "nice bloke"? Really?

    Save your tears! No doubt he'll get another gigantic pay-off, and all that stock he was"awarded" is already worth 20% more than yesterday. He's off to find some new throats to step on. I just hope it's the end of the nauseating Orwellian "victory plan" propaganda.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "nice bloke"? Really?

      it was "stamp", actually

  4. Anonymous Dutch Coward
    Coat

    Bullshit bingo

    "accelerate value creation for all of its stakeholders"? Wow! That new CEO certainly has a nice turn of phrase. Not only does he rake in the cash for the stockholders, and presumably whatever else he sees as "stakeholders"... could be high level management such as uhhhmm.... CxOs for all I know ;)... he will even increase the rate at which he rakes in the cash!

    Wow. Just wow.

  5. Magister
    Windows

    Call me crazy...

    ... but I don't give a tinker's cuss who is in charge, how "sexy" the product is, how much "leverage" of systems, or any other marketing horse feathers. The only things that matter to me are:

    1. Does the product work

    2. does it fill a real need

    3. Is it at a reasonable price

    4. Can I get sensible support if I make a mistake

    Quite simply, Symantec have screwed up in too many areas for me to really trust them ever again. They seem to be focussed far too much on just making more sales / profit, rather than on building products that people will want to come back to and buy.

  6. Tea
    FAIL

    Ha lol :D

    I hope symantec bloatware never succeed.

  7. Euripides Pants

    Assets/Performance

    "I believe our assets are better than our performance and I need to understand what's in the way."

    Your belief is not congruent with reality, Mr. Bennett.

    1. asdf
      FAIL

      Re: Assets/Performance

      They have cornered the market on crap security/monitoring ware that brings your computer to its knees and is harder to remove than a rootkit. Well maybe not cornered as McAfee is right there if they falter and release high quality software.

  8. Tree

    Turgid and slow Bloatware

    This company has slowed more computers down than Microsoft Office Suite. It would be worth buying Norton 360 if it were able to stop Google, Facebook, et al from stealing your private info. This would be a way to increase profit. Otherwise, Microsoft will put them out of business by making Windows safer. No change of leaders will prevent that. Mr. Bennett must find a different way for Symantec. to make money.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure Salem will be just fine

    He probably has a billion dollar platinum parachute.

    As far as Symantec AV software, I've never in 20 years found it to be the evil software many allege it to be. Maybe they are doing something different but IME many people find it works fine without any hassles?

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