Cupertino, Calif. April 15, 1999 - Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that record corporate sales and strong international performance have resulted in record revenue of $175.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 1999 ended April 2, 1999. This represents an increase of 12% or $19.5 million over the same quarter a year ago and 6% or $10.5 million over the previous quarter.

Net income before one time charges was $25 million compared to $24 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1998. Earnings per share before one time charges were $0.44 up from $0.40 in the same quarter a year ago. For the full fiscal 1999 year, revenues were $633.8 million, a 10% increase over fiscal year 1998. Earnings per share before one-time charges were $1.42 remaining flat compared to fiscal year 1998.

International revenue contributed $65.3 million, an increase of 21% over the fourth fiscal quarter of 1998. At $43.6 million, revenue from Symantec's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region grew 27% over the fourth quarter of fiscal 1998.

The announcement of record fourth fiscal quarter results coincides with the appointment of John W. Thompson as President and CEO of Symantec Corporation on Wednesday, April 14, who commented: "Symantec serves both corporate customers and consumers on a foundation of best-of-breed products and excellent customer service and support. These results demonstrate that our strategy is succeeding and we're pleased to report them to our shareholders."

Corporate growth
Symantec grew corporate revenues to a record 42% of total revenue in the fourth fiscal quarter, an increase of 69% over the same quarter a year ago and 12% over the previous quarter.

Sales were strong across Symantec's entire family of corporate software solutions comprising Norton AntiVirus, Norton 2000, Norton Ghost and pcANYWHERE. New corporate customers include Bank Boston, ARAMARK and Commonwealth Edison.

Symantec continued to execute its strategy of providing customers with best-of-breed technology solutions and leveraging key partnerships with IBM, Intel and Tivoli. At the end of the fourth fiscal quarter, the company had gained commitments from virtually all of the former IBM AntiVirus customers in the U.S. and over 80% worldwide to transition to Norton AntiVirus. Symantec and IBM are now working with these customers to help them achieve a smooth and efficient migration to Norton AntiVirus.

During the fourth fiscal quarter Symantec completed the integration of the Norton AntiVirus engine and Intel's systems management technology and began transitioning the Intel LANDesk Virus Protect customer base to Norton AntiVirus.

Symantec also released Visual Café Enterprise Suite in the fourth fiscal quarter. The product is the first of a new generation of integrated development environments (IDEs) that enable companies to quickly build sophisticated server based enterprise applications in Java that leverage the Internet and corporate intranets and extranets. According to PC Data, Symantec has a 55% share of the retail Java tools market share in January and February.

Retail market leadership
Symantec maintained a leading position in major retail markets during the fourth fiscal quarter. According to PC Data, Norton AntiVirus continued to be the best-selling retail anti-virus product in the U.S. with 56% unit market share in January and February. Norton SystemWorks continued its leadership of the U.S. retail utility suite market with 72% unit market share in January and February (source: PC Data).

The breadth of Symantec's product offering was proven by the fact that the company had more products in the January and February PC Data Top 20 business software lists than any other vendor, including Microsoft. The top selling products were Norton AntiVirus, Norton SystemWorks, pcANYWHERE, WinFax PRO and Norton Utilities in both months.

In Europe, Symantec capitalized on consolidation in the utility software market over the last twelve months to overtake Dr. Solomon's as the leading retail vendor for anti-virus and to establish a leadership position in utility suites. In the UK Symantec's share of the retail anti-virus market in CY98 was 37%, representing growth of 48% over the previous year (source: Romtec-GFK). In the UK retail utility suite category, the company leads with 75% share in units (source: Romtec-GFK).

In Germany Norton AntiVirus leads with 31% retail unit market share (source: GFK). And in France, Norton AntiVirus and Norton SystemWorks lead with 48% and 81% revenue retail market share respectively (source: GFK).

During the fourth fiscal quarter Symantec continued to meet the needs of customers who prefer to buy software over the Internet either directly from Symantec or via one of the company's on-line reseller partners. E-business revenue grew 86% over the same quarter in 1998 and 18% over the previous quarter. The top selling products sold over the Internet were Norton AntiVirus, Norton Web Services, WinFax PRO, Norton Utilities and ACT!

Product Summary
Symantec delivered eight products in the quarter:

• Professional Editions
• Norton HelpDesk Assistant 1.0
• Norton Utilities 4.0
• Norton CleanSweep 4.5
• Norton AntiVirus for OS/2
• Norton AntiVirus Plus for Tivoli Enterprise and Tivoli IT Director
• Visual Café Enterprise Suite
• NAV Corporate Edition for Intel customers

Product Awards and Accolades
Symantec won more than 70 awards during the quarter including:

• Norton AntiVirus and CleanSweep Deluxe received PC Magazine Best of 1998 Awards.
• PC/Computing named ACT! to their MVP list of products for 1998.
• Windows Magazine named ACT!
• Norton AntiVirus won Best Buy Awards from PC World and SC Magazine.
• Government Computer News awarded Norton 2000 the Reviewer's Choice award. The product also received the Best New Product award at FOSE.
• ACT! all received 1998 Product of the Year awards from CTI Magazine.
• Visual Café received InfoWorld's 1998 Product of the Year award and Network Computing's Editor's Choice award.

Consolidated Balance Sheets
Consolidated Statements of Operations

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 3,1998 and in the company's quarterly report Form 10-Q for the third fiscal quarter ended January 1, 1999.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

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