Broadcom sells Symantec Cyber Security Services to Accenture

Accenture Tuesday agreed to acquire Symantec's Cyber Security Services business from Broadcom.

The deal comes five months after Broadcom acquired Symantec's enterprise security business. No financial details have been disclosed as of yet, and the acquisition is expected to close in March.

Symantec's Cyber Security Services business includes global threat monitoring, incident response and managed security services that run on proprietary cloud platform. The deal will give Accenture more than 300 employees and six security operations centers located in the U.S., U.K., India, Australia, Singapore and Japan.

"We've acquired several [security] businesses over the past four or five years and it's always to serve some strategic need we have that we think our clients need from us," Ryan LaSalle, managing director and North America lead at Accenture Security, told SearchSecurity. "And in this space, I think the managed security market is one that needs some new answers in the marketplace, and I think the combination of what Accenture does in managed services for some of the largest companies in the world, and what Symantec does in managed services with a long-running reputation of quality and delivery but also with some proprietary insights and analytics that they bring."

Recent security acquisitions by Accenture include Arismore, Déjà vu Security and FusionX.

According to Symantec's 2019 Annual Report, the company generated $548 million for the year in "other products and services," which includes email security products and managed security services, consulting and other professional services housed with the Symantec Cyber Security Services unit.

Eric Parizo, senior analyst at Ovum, said in an email to SearchSecurity that he doesn't find it surprising that Broadcom would look to unload Symantec's managed security services business.

"Broadcom's model is to focus specifically on Fortune 1000 customers, and reduce costs by stripping away the R&D, product development, sales, marketing and services elements of its businesses that don't focus exclusively on that high-end enterprise customer segment," he said.

Parizo also said the deal "is likely just the beginning of a reshaping of Symantec." He continued,
"I expect in the next 12-18 months, we'll see several deals that remove high-cost or non-F1000-focused elements of the business, or rationalize redundancies, such as in the former CA IAM portfolio that Symantec inherited after arriving at Broadcom."

Christina Richmond, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said she is "bullish" on the deal.

"I think it's a fabulous acquisition for Accenture. I think that it brings them many tools that will extend their portfolio, including but not limited to the six security operations centers that Symantec brings to the table," she said. "The platform they have is going to be very beneficial for extending Accenture's capabilities they already have built. Not to mention, it's hard to find good people with the cyber skills shortage. Bringing those 300 people over is fabulous."