Taking the sleep away from investors, the antivirus maker Symantec on Tuesday sees a share down of more than 11 percent. The company, best known for its Norton anti-virus product, is in the midst of shifting its business to a more predictable subscription-based model away from selling licenses. The company stock plunged 11.5 percent to $15.98 on Tuesday after closing at $18.07 on Monday.
“This is not what investors drinking their morning coffee wanted to see,” Daniel Ives of FBR Capital Markets & Co said. Aaron Schwartz of Jefferies said that Symantec’s storage business was the “primary area of weakness”. He added: “It’s a lumpy business, there is more uncertainty quarter-on-quarter and the competition is difficult.”
“Approximately 60 percent of our license revenue typically comes from our storage and server management businesses,” Symantec Chief Executive Enrique Salem said on a call with analysts on Tuesday. “In the fourth quarter, large contracts from these businesses generated lower dollar values than expected,” he said, adding that “we definitely saw a tougher compare” because of the number of very large deals in March 2011.
