Symantec teams with Huawei for storage and security

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 22 May 2007 06:35

IT Industry - Deals

Symantec has formed a joint venture company with China's largest telecoms equipment maker, Huawei Technologies, to develop and distribute security and storage appliances to global telecommunications carriers and enterprises.

The new company will be headquartered in Chengdu, China, with Huawei owning 51 percent and Symantec 49 percent. Symantec will contribute $US150 million to grow the new business, along with some of its enterprise storage and security software licenses and its management expertise.

Huawei will contribute its existing telecommunications storage and security businesses including its integrated supply chain and integrated product development management practices. The JV will also have access to Huawei's intellectual property licenses, research and development capabilities, manufacturing expertise and engineering talent. The joint venture's services and support infrastructure will draw upon Huawei's model for customer service and technical support, including worldwide technical support and call centre operations.

Huawei CEO, Ren ZhengFei, said: "Network security will definitely form the foundation as telecom networks migrate toward an all IP environment. The partnership will enable us not only to provide leading network security solutions to carriers, but also to deliver professional security and storage solutions to enterprises."

Chinese manufacturer Huawei's rise in recent years has been meteoric, helped by a massive local market and a large pool of low cost Chinese R&D talent. A few years ago its success in overseas markets was mostly in third world countries and its products were seen as both low cost and low quality, but is now competing on equal terms with the established manufacturers and its threatening presence has been seen a major driver for a spate of mega mergers in the industry, including that of Alcatel and Lucent.
iTWire reviewed Huawei's emergence as a global force last year> That article is available here.

Huawei claims that its products and solutions are deployed in over 100 countries and serve 31 of the world's top 50 operators.