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Broadcom would be in advanced talks to take over security company Symantec. That’s what insiders say about Bloomberg. According to the sources, there could be an agreement within a few weeks. This would amount to more than USD 15 billion (EUR 13.3 billion).

According to the insiders, no deal has yet been concluded and it is also possible that the talks will be stopped. Symantec refused to respond to the news, Broadcom didn’t let anyone know.

Deeper leap in software market

With the deal, Broadcom again expands its presence in the software market. Last year it took a first step there with the acquisition of CA Technologies for 18.9 billion dollars. CA Technologies is a supplier of various IT systems and software products for cloud computing, mainframe and virtual machine environments.

Symantec provides products and services to over 350,000 organizations and 50 million people. Several analysts see the potential purchase as something positive for Broadcom. Symantec would fit well into the Broadcom portfolio, says analyst Harsh Kumar of Piper Jaffray for example.

According to him, the situation is similar to that of the CA-acqusition, which eventually turned out to be extremely successful under the Broadcom umbrella.

Challenges at Symantec

The news follows a long list of challenges Symantec faced in the past year. For example, there is more competition, the CEO unexpectedly stepped down and consumer interest in his antivirus solutions is decreasing.

Broadcom, under CEO Hock Tan, has seen a completely different strategy for software. Tan says he is bringing in franchises: groups and departments within companies that have a sustainable market position through technological leadership.

Tan then invests in those groups and departments to maintain that leadership, and makes them work as separate parts of Broadcom. The acquired products are therefore not directly integrated. It is possible that Symantec will be faced with a similar situation after the takeover.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.