Symantec acquisition by Broadcom ends in license/support chaos

[Karlston]

Symantec acquisition by Broadcom ends in license/support chaos

Another short message for IT service providers and people who need licenses for Symantec security products. After Broadcom’s acquisition of Symantec, things are likely to go haywire and distributors will not be able to issue new licenses.

Symantec Acquisition by Broadcom

Symantec was sold some time ago for 10.7 billion US $ to the Broadcom. At the end of November 2019, I reported in my German article Symantec-Übernahme durch Broadcom abgeschlossen that Broadcom had declared the Symantec acquisition as completed.

 

 

See also the above tweet from November 2019. So much for the background story.

Something went terrible wrong

In mid of February 2020 I received this German comment from blog reader Sileniu reporting a disturbing experience. Here is my translation:

I spoke to Symantec support and a distributor and I am really speechless right now. Broadcom obviously doesn’t have the appropriate systems to manage license management. You can’t buy additional licenses right now! My distributor has about 1,200 customer inquiries that cannot be processed. There is exactly one more German-speaking member of the support staff, as apparently about half of the service MAs and developers have been laid off by Broadcom. Without words! After 15 years, I will probably have to look for alternatives for my customers.

The Swiss site IT Reseller has published an article (in German) on this topic here. The IT magazine got the information from an anonymous source. The short version: During the company takeover, Symantec Switzerland is said to have experienced massive layoffs. In addition, resellers are no longer be able to purchase new licenses for Symantec products since the takeover. Quote from the article:

A reseller of Symantec complains about huge problems with license purchase and license renewal

In combination with the reader’s comment above, a conclusive picture emerges: Broadcom’s systems for managing these licenses simply cannot do this – licenses probably cannot be renewed when they expire, new licenses cannot be purchased. This is confirmed by the two sources above for Switzerland and Germany.

It’s crashing worldwide

There is also this comment in my German blog that refers to a Symantec forum discussion. But the link is broken because Broadcom redirects its own forums and all links break. You will be redirected on such linkt to the text page of Broadcom with the following content:

Welcome to the Broadcom Community

3/2/20 – Please Read Update
Over the weekend, we migrated all users and content from the Symantec Connect Community into the Broadcom Community.   Based on permission changes, updates and overnight indexing, please expect Website slowdowns.   Apologies for any inconvenience.
@Jason McClellan Platform Manager

Catalin Cimpanu has just pointed this out on Twitter – although I didn’t immediately understand it.

 

 

But when I read the second tweet from Catalin Cimpanu, I got the right puzzle pieces together and see the whole image:

 

 

So this is exactly the topic I mentioned above and discussed in the comments on the blog. And because of the forum redirection, the Symantec discussion posts at Broadcom have probably disappeared.

 

So a complete failure – in my opinion, caused by the Broadcom management. Does the purchase pay off for Broadcom under these circumstances? Actually, Symantec customers can only flee under these circumstances, or how do you see it?

 

 

Source: Symantec acquisition by Broadcom ends in license/support chaos (Born's Tech and Windows World)