Symantec okays Clearwell acquisition

Security giant, Symantec has agreed to acquire Clearwell Systems for $390 million in a move that adds electronic discovery tools to its offerings, reports InformationWeek.

Gartner expects the e-discovery software market to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 14% to reach $1.7 billion in 2014.

“The e-discovery market continues to grow substantially for a couple of reasons,” says John Bace, research VP at Gartner.

“E-discovery is not just used in civil and criminal litigation, but also for regulatory compliance and to a lesser degree commercial compliance - those transactions with customers, trading partners, and your supply chain,” he adds.

E-discovery is the electronic process by which records are gathered from data stores and processed for litigation requirements, explains eWeek.

This includes anything digital: word processing files, photos, e-mail, audio and video files, instant messaging transcripts, Internet bookmarks, and even data centre users' logs.

The Economic Times reveals that Symantec senior VP for Symantec information management, Deepak Mohan, says: “The acquisition of Clearwell's electronic discovery solution will further increase Symantec's ability to get the right information, to the right people, at the right time, while reducing overall legal review costs and limiting risk.”

The Register says Symantec expects its earnings to increase because of the acquisition in its fiscal 2013, and the purchase is expected to be completed in September. The $390 million price is net of $20 million cash held by Clearwell.