Symantec announced today that it will offer host security and storage management products through the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2).

At present the announcement is really a distribution play for Symantec and a coverage play for Amazon — EC2 customers can now align their cloud computing services with Symantec security and storage products. While Amazon may add other similar products to its menu in the future, for the time being:

1. Symantec gets first mover advantage and should pick up some business through Amazon.
2. Symantec and Amazon have already worked on product, management, and billing integration. This gives Symantec time to build upon its relationship with Amazon.
3. Symantec gains valuable cloud computing experience with one of the leaders.

Finally, Symantec and Amazon can now explore a roadmap for the future. For example, it would be great if I could manage an EC2 security or storage management client as another node through my existing enterprise management systems. If Symantec and Amazon develop this option, it could help large organizations bridge internal IT assets with the cloud. In my opinion, this would be extremely attractive to the large base of Symantec security and storage management customers.

Related posts:

1. Symantec Bolsters Public Sector Offering with Acquisition of Gideon Technologies
2. Symantec + Verisign = Cloud Security
3. Symantec Moving to Define an Encryption Architecture
4. What Will Symantec Do Next With Verisign?
5. My Vision about Symantec Vision

Tags: Amazon, Cloud Computing, EC2, Symantec