Symantec & Veritas CEOs detail merger

Bloom made his remarks during an investors meeting held Wednesday by Veritas and Symantec. The companies last month said they agreed to merge in a $13.5 billion all-stock deal. The new company will operate as Symantec.

Security managers have become IT risk managers, responsible for regulatory compliance and system availability in addition to security, Bloom said. "You'll see more of that consolidated view in the future," he predicted.

The merger provides risk managers with a one-stop shop, he said. Enterprises want to reduce the complexity of their infrastucture and deal with fewer suppliers, Bloom and Symantec Chairman and CEO John Thompson told investors.

Integrating the companies' technologies also will provide enterprises with a more proactive approach to securing their environments, Bloom said. The companies are looking at possibilities such as "what we could we do around availability to provide preemptive responses instead of always being in a react mode to a virus," he explained.

Another opportunity for integration is email risk management, Bloom said. While Symantec provides antivirus protection and spam filtering, Veritas offers compliance software for Microsoft Exchange.

Thompson assured investors that the merger was not one of putting together "a broken company with a well-run company," but rather combining leaders in different markets. Wednesday's meeting was an effort to assuage investors' doubts about the deal.

Expected to close in the second quarter of this calendar year, the merger will create the fourth largest independent softare company.

"We think this positions the new Symantec to be the go-to choice for CIOs around the world ... These are market leaders coming together, which is what is uniquely different about this transaction and why some have viewed it with trepidation," Thompson said.

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