Symantec-IBM Partnership Puts Mobile Essentials 2.0 on Selected ThinkPad Notebooks

Mobile Essentials Makes it Easy to Configure IBM ThinkPad Notebook PCs to New Locations

Cupertino, Calif, August 2, 1999 - Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced today that IBM (NYSE: IBM) will include Mobile Essentials 2.0 as a standard component on selected ThinkPad notebook computers. This relationship, effective now, further demonstrates the strength of the commitment between IBM and Symantec to provide the industry¹s most comprehensive computing solutions. Mobile Essentials 2.0 enables users to quickly adjust to new locations by creating profiles of settings such as TCP/IP and network configuration for every location from which they work. IBM¹s ThinkPad notebook PCs are continuously recognized for their superior performance, leading technology, and business-smart designs.

"By combining award-winning hardware from IBM with next-generation software from Symantec, we are providing mobile users the smartest tools for increasing their productivity anytime, anywhere," said Christopher Calisi, vice president of the Remote Productivity Solutions Business Unit at Symantec.

"Our partnership with Symantec is helping to create innovative solutions to meet the increasingly demanding needs of mobile professionals today as well as tomorrow," said Adalio Sanchez, general manager, IBM Mobile Computing. "Mobile Essentials enhances the overall flexibility and power of our ThinkPad notebooks by enabling mobile users to configure their notebooks quickly and automatically so users are productive regardless of where they are located."

During the past three years, laptop sales have grown more rapidly than sales of desktop machines, and the trend is expected to continue into the next century. IDC predicts that the combined annual growth of laptops worldwide between 1998 and 2002 will be 14.6 percent and that annual units will grow from 16.3 million 1998 to approximately 28.2 million by 2002. This tremendous growth reflects the trend of replacing desktops with laptops as the primary computing device. According to Giga Research, 90 percent of laptops will be used as the primary device in 2000‹up from 50 percent in 1997.

With more consumers and organizations relying on notebook computers such as the IBM ThinkPad for both in-office and out-of-office use, new challenges are created for individual users as well as for the IT professionals who support them. Mobile users typically spend a significant amount of time adjusting their PC settings every time they arrive in a new location as well as resolving problems caused by incorrect settings. For IT support staff, a growing mobile workforce can cause the corporate helpdesk to become swamped with calls from end-users needing help adapting their PCs to new locations.

Mobile Essentials 2.0 enables ThinkPad users to create location profiles‹the laptop settings that must be adjusted when workers travel to different locations. These location profiles include TCP/IP settings and all aspects of network configuration, such as switching between NetWare Bindery and NDS, changing NDS trees and context, specifying a Windows NT domain, turning login scripts on and off, and specifying which drives are mapped and which are shared. Location profiles also include default printer settings, dialing settings (area code, calling card, prefixes, and dial-tone detection) and settings for popular applications such as cc:Mail, Lotus Notes, WinFax, Internet Explorer, and Netscape. Once the location profiles are created, the laptop user starts Windows and selects a location profile. All of the settings change automatically, based on the location profile selected, resulting in a dramatic decrease in downtime and a significant increase in productivity.

Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above. Among these are the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments, the competitive environment in the software industry, dependence on other products, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems, and the importance of new Symantec products. Additional information concerning those and other factors is contained in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 2, 1999.

About Symantec
Symantec is a world leader in Internet security technology and technology solutions that help companies manage and support workforces that use laptop computers and other mobile devices.

The company is a leading provider of software products for the consumer market and is rapidly growing its presence as a provider of solutions to enterprise organizations

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