The makers of Norton Anti-Virus seem to have decided spam fighting can be profitable as well as vital. Symantec has bought anti-spam software maker BrightMail for a reported $370 million in a straight cash deal, surprising some observers who had been expecting BrightMail to roll out an initial public offering worth about $80 million in the near future.
“Spam has increasingly become one of the most severe threats to individuals and enterprises today, topping viruses as the number one problem plaguing e-mail systems and administrators,” said Symantec chairman John W. Thompson announcing the deal. “BrightMail is the leader in helping enterprises, service providers, and wireless carriers mitigate this threat. Their patented technology is a critical component of a comprehensive gateway security solution.”
Symantec and BrightMail were hardly strangers to each other before the buy – Symantec already held an estimated 11 percent equity stake in BrightMail. BrightMail had filed a March 2004 registration statement indicating plans for an initial public offering, but the company’s board and stockholders determined shortly thereafter that the company’s future might be better secured by joining with Symantec.
“We’ve built a complete spam defense offering that includes multiple technologies such as proactive heuristic and reputation-based blocking for the most robust, multi-layered defense, providing the highest accuracy rating in the industry,” said BrightMail chief executive Enrique Salem in his own statement. “By joining forces with Symantec, we can provide our combined base of customers around the world with the broadest messaging security solution in the industry.”
