There has been a certain level of nervousness among security vendors with Microsoft's recent entry into the security software market. Such concerns are hardly surprising.

After all, security software has always been the sole enclave of the likes of Symantec, McAfee and others.

Symantec, however, has remained unabated with every move Microsoft makes in the security arena. To differentiate itself from its rivals, Symantec in October outlined its vision for Security 2.0--a new generation of security products and services for the connected world. It means integrating software, services and partnerships to protect information and their interactions.

The company is also always looking out for new areas of growth. Of late, it has been forging closer ties with network equipment vendors to offer security products in intrusion detection systems. In September, Symantec partnered with Juniper Networks to market Symantec's antispam, identity and intrusion prevention technologies with Juniper's unified threat management portfolio.

This company is listed in Storage Management, Software Infrastructure, Security, Services.