Symantec Takes Mobile Security To The Cloud
Symantec (NSDQ:SYMC) plans to start selling next year cloud-based technology that enables wireless carriers to provide businesses and consumers with options for controlling mobile access to Web sites.
Symantec’s Accelerated Next Generation Network Protection [NGNP] product will be hosted in the data centers of Edison, N.J.-based Tekmark, which sells security, consulting and quality-assurance services. Symantec will start selling the service to carriers in the first half of next year. A third partner, Seattle-based Centri Technology, will provide the application that runs on the mobile device and communicates with Tekmark’s servers, which will run the Symantec software. Centri is a two-year-old startup backed by Lake Forest, Ill.-based private investment firm RimLight.
Symantec started selling NGNP software to carriers a year ago. Because of the ongoing deployment of 4G networks, carriers are slow to buy additional services they would have to deploy themselves. Adding services often get a lower priority on carriers’ list of technology chores. “It’s an arm wrestle between the chief marketing guys and the network engineers,” Ray Greenan, marketing director for Symantec’s telecom group, said.
