Well, Symantec (one of my favorite whipping-boy software companies) is at it again. I mean they have taken hold of the crank with a death grip and are trying their best to give that bad boy one heck of a spin! Now you ought to know by now that I consistently rant against Symantec's overpriced, overbearing, overweight, overly-intrusive, underwhelming security suite. So, when early data (from NPD, some leading market monitoring group) indicated that Microsoft (of whom I am no great fan either) nabbed a juicy 15.4% of security software sales for June, the folks at Symantec went running for the spin knob. Let me grace you with a couple "translations".
John Thompson (Symantec CEO) "I'm not worried about Microsoft at all. Let's be clear about that... And to the extent that Microsoft plays fairly, there is a level playing field and I don't worry about Microsoft. If they do something that is unfair, clearly we will be watching and I'm sure others will as well. Microsoft is synonymous with a lot of things in the software and technology industry. Security is not one of them."
TRANSLATION: Of course we're scared half witless by Microsoft; every time they start planting in other companies' gardens, those companies disappear faster than a popsicle in August! You can bet that if they start rolling too fast, we'll scream that they're doing something illegal, just to slow them down and keep them from rolling over us. If they so much as work too much overtime, we're gonna get you and everyone else banging on the doors of the Justice Department! We still have too many customers to beat down."
That was back in late June, before the numbers came out. Since then, I have read at least three stories about how Symantec is digging holes in everything Microsoft (trying to shatter an image, perhaps?). Every week, it seems, they call in a bunch of reporters and start tattling, "See? See? They got mud on their face. See? See? Their shoes are untied. See? See?
So, when the numbers showed that Symantec's sales dropped over 10%, while Microsoft snatched 15% of their turf, you could hear the spin machine revving up. Here's another translation for ya:
Mike Plante (a Symantec marketing director) "We just had a record June quarter in consumer sales,... You can't really draw market share conclusions from the NPD data alone, particularly with just a month of data." Mr. Plante also indicated that the NPD data covers retail sales only, and does not include consumer sales through Internet service providers and PC makers, for example.
TRANSLATION: Well, see, it's all in how you look at it. It might look like our sales dropped 10% in the same month that Microsoft just happened to come out with a competing product, but, uhh, uuhhh, it was a record month for us! Yeah! Plus, 15% isn't really 15% if you know what I mean. I mean, well, see..I think, well it's just that, you know they aren't really beating us at all, you know? We're not scared, really. We're not scared at all. Do we look scared? No, really? We still have 59% of the market in customers to beat down. That's not sweat you see. I mean, it's just--heh heh--hot out today."
Pants on fire, Plante! In one month, you guys slipped 10%, while Microsoft zipped into the race brand new and are now SECOND in the market. A rather distant second right now to be sure, but with some pretty fresh legs if you ask me.
My suggestion is that Symantec not fiddle while Cupertino burns; they might want to start developing some games and maybe one of those programs to make all your desktop icons look really cool, like you're some kind of power user or something. They'd better do something, ANYTHING before they get swept under the rug. I for one won't miss them.