John W. Thompson doesn't like to follow the crowd. When he was a young salesperson at button-down IBM in the early 1970s, he wore leisure suits and stylishly big hair. "I was determined I wasn't going to be a slave to IBM fashion," he says.
Thirty years later, Thompson, now the 53-year-old CEO of security software company Symantec Corp. (SYMC
), is more Brooks Brothers than Saturday Night Fever. But he's still his own man. While his competitors have hunkered down during the tech collapse, Thompson has been buying up companies, including five in 2002 alone, all focused on corporate computer security.
So far, it looks like Thompson is on to something. In Symantec's most recent quarter, ended Sept. 30, the company earned $52 million, quadruple the year before, on revenues of $325 million, up 34%. "I firmly believe our strategy is beginning to play out," says Thompson.
Here's the curious part, though: Symantec's revenue burst hasn't come from Thompson's acquisitions. It's due mostly to the company's original business--antivirus software. At a time when consumers have become more interested in protecting their home computers, Thompson has improved retail-sales channels to make it easier to find his products. Still, when corporations start spending on software again, his new businesses had better pay off.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
-- Thompson improved Symantec's retail-sales channels to better exploit the increasing demand for personal computer antivirus software
-- While other companies retrenched, Thompson has bought five startups that focus on corporate computer security
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Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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