Plans, news, updates are drying up. The most recent all hands are not available to watch again.
Odd.
Let’s hope the next all hands gives some more solid information and not a repeat of the stupid questions that were asked last time out.
19 replies (most recent on top)
@2vbs that's essentially what the LifeLock brand did for Norton. Nothing wrong with that.
Broadcom only cares about the patents and the Symantec name. You will see the name branded on their c-appy CA offering and global 1000 companies eat it up paying extra monies for nothing more than a facade of security.
@2oei No emails are being sent to that address other than the confirmation. You need to confirm you're a member of that org to talk sh– about that org. You can't go on the BRCM pages yet or any other company's forum unless you have an email address with their domain.
@10RMIDSD-2pnq Using corporate mail addresses to open a private account on Blind which I will be using to talk not so pleasant things about the company. That seems pretty trustworthy. Not.
With all due respect, the board and Hill are just the most recent issue (symptom) and not the cause. The reality is that Symantec has been mismanaged for years, and that there are a few departments within Enterprise that actually have very good and healthy margins, while most do not. While the board was a factor in the lead up to this situation, its hardly something that happened overnight.
A business can develop new shiny things, and that is fine, provided they are developed and launched in a proper way. This is also part of what failed at Symantec. You cant launch new products, not have a beta, charge large amounts of money for it, and then ignore your more established revenue streams. This takes great, faithful customers through the ringer all over trying to get more ROI on new products that were not ready for prime time. This destroys customer faith in Symantec, and then they start looking for other solutions, because they get tired of being mislead by a sales team that cant actually articulate how the product helps them, and just uses boiler plate info that all turns out to be incorrect.
The reality is that by buying up so many companies (technologies) to quickly, failing to support existing more mature products (DLP, SEP, Proxy), and failing rolling out new products in a proper way, Symantec became a bloated, misguided monster that was ripe for someone like Starboard to come in, force the CEO out, put more of their cronies on the board, and sell off parts of the company to make millions.
So yes, Broadcom will change things and be much easier to deal with from a product perspective, but lets not lose sight of the fact that the org has been unhealthy for years. Throwing people at the problem was not the way to fix it, and is the #2 issue that lead to this. The #1 was the jack of all trades, master of none product road map from the last 3 - 5 years.
@10RMIDSD-2fju
Happy to help.
You need to install Blind app on your phone and activate it using Symantec email address.
After it, you will have an access to Symantec lounge.
Just search for Blind via appstore on your phone.
Their website: https://www.teamblind.com/
I also need to mention that Blind is blocked via Symantec WIFI and VPN.
So you need to login and read via data plan or non-Symantec WIFI.
Can you post a link to the discussion on Blind?
It’s people like Hill and the Board that were the problem. They had unrealistic expectations about Symantec’s business, believing that they would get the desired return on investment by developing shiny things.
Hock Tan is much more realistic about the nature of Symantec’s core products on the enterprise side and realizes that the best way to maximize return on investment is to build sustainable franchises and not be distracted by shiny things. There is investment only to the extent that it is required to sustain an existing business that matters to Broadcom. Understandably, that’s probably not exciting to engineers who want to build shiny things.
It was this mindset, together with the Board’s unrealistic expectations and I’ll-informed decisions, that led to a massive amount of dysfunction and the need to blow things up.
Transition is the best bet especially if you have significant time with Symantec. You get a pretty nice transition bonus on top of your severance but it's a 60 day payout.
Based on the call this morning, it sounds like transitional contracts will be offered by Symantec, not Broadcom. Those contracts will probably be for people in supporting functions like HR, legal, etc...It sounds like these will be few and far between but the point is murky, so I could be misinterpreting what was said.
Most people in functions like development and customer support will go over as Broadcom employees. Again, if I understood the point correctly. My peers seemed to take away the same message. That said, Broadcom is continuously evaluating business performance and need, so if you go over, you're only guaranteed a job until the next RIF. Of course, that's been standard operating procedure at Symantec for years now, so it should be nothing new.
What insight is there to be had? We have been run like c-ap for a few years (Thanks Greg!), cant focus on putting out quality products or updates, and would rather spend time putting out new shiny c-ap that doesn't do much, if anything (ICDX, ATP/EDR, SEP 15). Im amazed that it took this long for someone like Hill and Starboard to muscle their way in, strip us down, and sell us all down the river while making a huge pile of cash for themselves.
You can really tell that Art and Sr. Mgmt have all of the employees in mind with how they are acting and treating the entire thing like its a joke. Guess Ill have to try harder at become a member of Sr. Mgmt so that I can act like selling 5 thousand people down the river to be able to make piles of cash is fun and doesnt really hurt anyone.
People are not comfortable to post certain things here.
There is a topic on Blind with some highlights.
Can anyone who attended the meeting share some insight?
Many people would prefer a transitional offer over an immediate termination. It gives people time to make the next move in a reasonable time frame and it ensures financial certainty in the short term.
Hopefully there is a reasonable level of clarity on tomorrow's all hands.
Don't conclude that 'move to' means permanent offers. It's more reasonable to expect a number of things will more temporarily until knowledge gets transferred. Once done, the organizational will become as lean as possible.
The call happened today via WebEx. It mostly a rehash of what was covered in previous meetings, and a preview of what's to come in tomorrow's meeting. Restated that most support, dev, and SEs would move to Broadcom. Art's being given some freedom to build his org how he sees fit. It might get reigned in by the powers that be, but right now he's getting to make the important decisions.
directors-and-above all-hands Wednesday morning at 8am.
Is this meeting happening at Symantec HQ or Broadcom HQ?
There's a directors-and-above all-hands Wednesday morning at 8am. Will there be any significant news? Who knows.
Take a deep breath - there's an all hands later this week. As for the replay not being available, last time they took ~1 week to make the replay available. Being updated once a week is much better than I would have expected based on past Symantec behavior.