Symantec to acquire PC Tools

Industry giant adds spyware specialist to growing portfolio.

Security industry behemoth Symantec has announced the planned acquisition of PC Tools, the Australia-based company behind Spyware Doctor and a range of security, privacy and system-cleaning products.

Symantec plans to close the deal by the end of the year, keeping PC Tools as a separate unit under the corporate umbrella. Financial details of the deal have yet to be released.

PC Tools' flagship Spyware Doctor product has become a regular competitor in VB100 comparatives, along with a standalone anti-virus product. Both have incorporated the VirusBuster engine for anti-virus detection, but this looks likely to change once the takeover is completed. Other popular products in the PC Tools lineup include Registry Mechanic, recently released iAntiVirus for Mac and the ThreatFire proactive defence software.

Details of the acquisition are at Symantec here.

20 August 2008

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2 comments

Bad news for end users. Symantec swallows up another Utility Software company that's making progress primarily to eliminate competition. What other reason for buying them? What does PC Tools have that they don't already have? Symantec doesn't sell it's utility products individually. That separate division, less a few key transfers, will eventually be non-existent.

by Bob Louder, 26 August 2008, 00:26

I now officially have a pain in the neck with Norton.

Recovering from a recent HD failure I had to decide on a disk utility option and having used them before subscribed to PC Tools - no Norton are taking it over?

I'm having a bad enough time putting up with a slow and klunky ZoneALarm Suite which are discontinuing support for Win2K and am getting fed up with the whole move-to-Vista nonsense, now PCTools are getting sucked in by Norton. Damn!

As for VIsta, did I ASK for this 2.8Ghz powered rubbish? Nope. I was quite happy running a 3.4Ghz WinXP system if ONLY certain applications would stop hogging ALL the resources and take their turn.

I didn't NEED something with a max speed of 2.8Ghz if I was using just one application.

I NEEDED something with a max single user applicationf of maybe 5.0Ghz and a steady 2.5Ghz when running several AT ONCE. But that's too much damned trouble for MicroIntel. I may as well commission someone to write a decent Linux based CAD application [ the only reason I'm still usign windows] and develop a custom Linux cluster and be done with it.

This conglomerating accretion of smaller companies has to STOP! before we have no alternative choice at all. I don't NEED 900 channels, I DO NEED say 20 channels with decent programmes on them, not crappy 10 and 20-year old re-runs. Anyway, sorry about the rant.

Sheesh!

by Michael O'Neill, 14 September 2008, 22:18