Symantec continues to expand its business

Security giant boosts consulting offerings and services

Symantec has made further inroads into areas not traditionally associated with its core business, making a raft of new product announcements and partnership agreements.

A deal with global consultancy Accenture will see the two firms offer tools and consultancy services to enable enterprises to successfully implement and run risk management programmes.

Accenture's global managing director of Security Services, Alastair MacWillson, said Security Transformation Services will help firms address three key risk areas: compliance; security monitoring; and secure application development.

“Enterprises face a highly competitive market and must be able to respond quickly and efficiently to security incidents, provide secure online offerings and ensure that the company is up to date on regulatory controls and compliance requirements," he explained. "This joint initiative announced by Accenture and Symantec can be thought of as a working partnership, with all of the people and resources commitment expected in an organisation but without creating a separate legal entity."

Symantec also announced version two of its Norton Confidential Online Edition, which will enable financial institutions and retailers to offer safer online services to their customers by alerting users to phishing sites and blocking crimeware such as keyloggers.

The firm will augment this by offering B2B and B2C customers VeriSign's Identity Protection (VIP) authentication services, after tying up another new agreement.

Symantec Database Security, meanwhile, is a new solution designed to protect database management systems from being hacked, by monitoring for potentially fraudulent actions. A new Mail Security product – the 8300 Series – was also unveiled, featuring enhanced outbound content security capabilities.

Andy Kellett of analyst Butler Group said the Accenture announcement will " resonate well at the high end of Symantec's user base", and added that by broadening its offerings, the firm could be trying to lessen the impact on its business of Microsoft's imminent entry into the consumer and SMB market.

Graham Titterington of analyst Ovum said the database security product could be of real value to organisations, but added that there was little new in the email and online security announcements.

"The problem with two-way authentication is that end-users may not be able to understand it," he argued. "While improved security is good, it won't [boost] u ser confidence unless people understand it."