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Piracy ring hits Symantec, slows Veritas license rollout
By Lucas Mearian
November 30, 2006

Symantec Corp. said today that a piracy ring is costing it tens of millions of dollars in revenue and is partially behind a slowdown in the release of new software licenses for some Veritas backup products. Symantec's CIO David Thompson told Computerworld that his company has been investigating large North American and Canadian piracy rings for more than two years and that with the acquisition of Veritas, additional piracy of Backup Exec software by the same groups was discovered.

Cris Paden, Symantec's manager of corporate public relations, said more information would be released in the next few weeks and called the piracy ring "humongous," saying it represents sales of software that amounts to "eight figures." "The problems ... as far as transitioning customers through the new licensing process is minimal [compared to] what our support people would endure if they were having to deal with customers using ... counterfeit versions of Backup Exec," Paden said.

"It's a growing problem that we're trying to head off at the pass." Although the company is pointing to piracy as a major issue, customers are less concerned with the cause of licensing backups and slow support -- and more upset about the results. Some users are complaining that Symantec technical support has deteriorated since its merger with Veritas Corp. began last year and that their software licensing program for Veritas Backup Exec software is in a logjam.

At least one user said he has waited three weeks for an upgrade to Veritas Backup Exec 11d. Another said he has waited up to three hours on the phone for technical support help. "According to customer support, they have thousands and thousands of [software upgrade] invitations being held because the merger of Veritas licensing with their own has been such a disaster.