Huawei Symantec

Zhang Ping'an, Huawei Symantec COO, speaks to Business Management about the growing network security and storage needs of enterprises today.

Can you tell us more about Huawei Symantec?
The Huawei Symantec joint venture was announced in May 2007 and officially established on February 5th, 2008. Huawei and Symantec established this partnership to develop and distribute world-leading security and storage solutions to enterprises. Our portfolio of end-to-end solutions serves customers ranging from small to medium enterprises (SMEs) all the way to large enterprises across industries such as government, financial services, oil and gas, healthcare, telecommunications, amongst others.

Headquartered in Chengdu, China, Huawei Symantec has more than 3,800 employees. Because of our dedication to continuous innovations for our customers, Huawei Symantec has applied for more than 500 patents and the company has opened R&D centers across China, in Chengdu, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. Our company has formulated major standards for and on behalf of domestic and international security and storage standardization organizations. Huawei owns 51 percent of the joint venture and Symantec owns 49 percent. Huawei Symantec has more than 140 service branches around the world to fully support the needs of our global partners.

How did the joint venture come about?
The Huawei Symantec joint venture was driven by innovation and the need to develop new solutions and keep pace with the evolving risks and increased availability requirements facing enterprise customers. Addressing the increased industry demand for more innovative and streamlined solutions is what both parent companies are aiming to achieve from this joint venture. Huawei's world-class telecommunications networking product development and manufacturing capabilities, coupled with Symantec's leading edge security and storage software, enable Huawei Symantec to offer unique and innovative solutions that the industry is seeking to revolutionize and secure their systems.

Huawei Symantec not only provides enterprise customers with network security and storage solutions, but also provides an all-inclusive consulting service covering risk assessment, system construction, operation and maintenance, business continuity, emergency response, and regulatory compliance.

How is Huawei Symantec different from other network security and storage solution providers in the Middle East and Africa markets?
Huawei Symantec is in a unique position compared to its competitors because it can leverage the complementary strengths of its parent companies, which are leaders in their respective fields – telecoms network infrastructure (Huawei) and security and storage software (Symantec) – to provide world-class network security and storage solutions to the enterprise. This is an ideal partnership because Huawei Symantec can tap into the customer base, backing, and expertise of both parent companies to enable Huawei Symantec to provide far more effective and efficient solutions for our customers.

With the growing number of connections across IP networks and IT systems, it is increasingly important to balance performance and availability requirements with system security and data integrity. Huawei Symantec offers a full suite of network security and storage solutions, for SMEs and large enterprises, which are easy to implement and will maximize their return on investment (ROI) while addressing these challenges.

What are major storage issues that are affecting enterprises today?
Today, there's a growing need for high performance systems and networks as balanced by system availability and data integrity. That is why Huawei Symantec has developed our Secospace and Oceanspace portfolio of solutions to address needs across virtualization, cloud computing, security, and data storage.

Virtualization: The proliferation of data, devices and networks has increased the storage and security requirements for enterprises. It is necessary to integrate hierarchical storage devices, simplify management, and construct multi-level disaster recovery systems. Huawei Symantec's product solutions meet these requirements and enable the implementation of uniform management, data transfer, and data protection.

Cloud computing: According to IDC's "Digital Universe" report, the volume of data created by individuals and enterprises is doubling every 18 months. It will simply become too expensive for companies to store all of this data on their own servers. Huawei Symantec not only offers the most advanced storage node devices in the industry, we have also designed our distributive storage systems and cloud storage services to ensure substantial decrease in total cost of ownership for our customers through innovations like a standby hibernating storage mode.

Security: The threats facing Internet service providers are changing from pure network risks to network and content combined risks. In addition, threats are transmitted at a faster pace through more extensive channels, generating greater impact. Therefore, security must be fool-proof for network applications. Enterprises of all sizes today need to be more proactive and should establish a deep defense system.

Data storage: The exponential growth of data has put pressure on enterprises of all sizes, and as a result they seek greater storage space and efficiency. Huawei Symantec's approach is to provide cutting edge technology and modular designs to create a professional, integrated storage solution for our customers and that highly utilizes storage resources. Similarly, our portfolio includes storage systems that are economical and effective in data protection for small and medium enterprises.

What is Huawei Symantec's outlook for this region in 2010?
Globally, Huawei Symantec retained 70% annual growth and became a key player in security and storage markets, with annual sales in 2009 reaching $300 million, despite competing in markets dominated by global brands. Our business in MENA is an important part of Huawei Symantec's growth. IDC forecasts that IT spending in the Middle East and Africa will reach US$49.77 billion in 2010. To meet this demand, Huawei Symantec will continue to introduce our innovative network security and storage solutions into the region through our authorized distributors, such as Mindware and Tech Access, to grow our network of partners and expand our business here.