Norton EVP: Lifelock Acquisition Will Allow Symantec To Expand Services, Partner Network

Symantec's acquisition of LifeLock is a big boost to the company's consumer business, but Norton Executive Vice President Fran Rosch said partners should expect to see some benefits to the enterprise security portfolio, as well.

Symantec announced late Sunday that it would acquire LifeLock for $2.3 billion, with the deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2017. LifeLock offers a collection of identity protection and remediation services for consumers.

In an interview with CRN, Rosch said the LifeLock acquisition moves Symantec into more value-added services, above and beyond its traditional Norton antivirus portfolio. Rosch said Symantec was drawn to LifeLock because of its ID analytics capabilities, high customer rankings and strong partner channel.

[Related: Another Blockbuster Buy: Symantec Plans To Acquire LifeLock For $2.3B]

"In the past, we have seen a lot of our customers most worried about PC-based malware and viruses, which they now expect to be solved. Now, their hottest topics are around identity theft, the privacy of their information and where it is," Rosch said.

"This market is such a fast-growing market. In the Norton space, there is a lot of competition and identity protection is a faster growing market. Combining [these two companies], the consumer business will be growing and maintaining strong profitability. We're really excited about the positive growth this will bring for Norton and for our partners," he said.

Rosch said the benefits of the deal, while primarily focused on the company's consumer business, will also bleed into the enterprise side of the house. He said LifeLock's ID analytics business could appeal to enterprise customers, as well as its fraud mitigation service. He said the company's big data analytics capabilities could ultimately connect with Symantec's threat intelligence database.

"That's something we want to nurture, but the consumer side will be the focus," Rosch said.

For partners, Rosch said he sees "natural" opportunity for service provider and telco partners, who are looking for additional services prospects. He said the LifeLock acquisition also opens a new channel of partners for Symantec for employee benefit program brokers, of which there are dozens.

Jason Eberhardt, vice president of strategic alliances at Chicago-based Conventus, said he is "very excited" to see Symantec continue to expand its security offerings with "an extremely strong product" from LifeLock. He said that is important because his business "will be able to offer more protection to our customers" with the combination of Symantec and LifeLock offerings.

"Cybersecurity is ever-changing and constantly evolving. These are the types of moves that keep us in the forefront. This will be great for the partners as they will be able to now offer more solutions to our joint clients," Eberhardt said.

Rosch said he doesn't expect the acquisition will have much impact on the roadmap for Norton, which he said was already focused on solidifying the security business across a variety of different areas, including its traditional business, mobile, automated home, the Internet of Things, and, now, identity protection.

"We have a balanced strategy of things that we're trying to partner on some things and make acquisitions and do some cool innovation," Rosch said.

Rosch said Norton "doesn't have any plans to do any other acquisitions" for the time being. Symantec CEO Greg Clark has said that Symantec isn't done making acquisitions yet and will "continue to do the inorganic things that we've done for many years."

Clark said Symantec plans to build on the four pillars of information, users, web and messaging security in its enterprise security portfolio. Rosch said after the LifeLock acquisition, the enterprise security business "has no intention to do any other acquisitions at this point, but we do have flexibility for the future."