Dear Symantec: A Breakup Letter From Within May Be Approaching

Increasingly, companies are finding that breaking up operations isn't exactly a thing to avoid, but in many cases a thing to embrace. We just saw the impact of such breakups as PayPal and eBay (News - Alert) looked to stage a separation, and as HP looked to split off its consumer hardware from the rest of its operations. Now, news of another such possibility emerge as Symantec (News - Alert) is reportedly considering a breakup of its own, this time with one side to focus on security programs and the other to focus on storing data.

Symantec's breakup by itself wouldn't mean so much, some note, but viewed in the light of other companies looking to do likewise, it joins part of a growing community, and that's making some wonder if a trend is in the making. Symantec, though, has been having a rough time of things at last report, and that's distressing giving the growing demand for computer security. Between developments like the bring your own device (BYOD) concept, the increasing numbers in the mobile workforce, and the rapidly-increasing numbers of hackings and infiltrations taking place at major retailers worldwide, these should be salad days for computer security firms like Symantec. But at Symantec, the developments appear to have passed the company by, with revenue down over the last year and chief executive officer Steve Bennett let go after just two years in the top slot. Then there's the issue of its Veritas Software acquisition all the way back in 2005, a move which has never really brought much in the way of value for Symantec.

So in a certain light, a breakup can make some sense. The frenzy of mergers and acquisitions can work both ways here, as companies look to divest properties that don't work in the overall vision, and Symantec might well fall into this class. It's often better to divest a property that doesn't quite work rather than hang on to it, as it allows the rest of the company to divert its efforts in better directions. This is a point that organizations like HP, eBay and Symantec may now be seeing in person; the corporation where most of the effort is going in the same direction is the one that makes the most headway, so to speak. It's one thing to pick up a company on the strength of its potential to make a company stronger—this is the kind of speculation that most people engage in routinely—but when it doesn't pan out, it's a good time to just divest the new acquisition and carry on.

A company needs to have its effort moving toward a common goal. Recently we saw how some are recommending greater empowerment in customer service, but at the same time a greater stressing of standards in the company itself such that customer service departments work toward that common goal. Most companies look to expansion to fuel progress toward that goal, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way, and that's when divestiture needs to come into play.

Breaking up is starting to be an increasing fact of life in Silicon Valley, where so much of the news has been focused on acquisitions. Startups are engulfed, developers are hired, but sometimes it's better to cut bait rather than fish, so to speak, and some companies are starting to show us that it's okay not to grow in every direction at once, but rather, prune some growth back in pursuit of that common thread.