Back in the mid-1980’s, there was a TV show called “The A Team.” A favorite catchphrase of one of the characters was, “I love it when a plan comes together!” He’d say this after a series of seemingly incongruous activities would all come together to produce amazing results. Then he’d gloat while puffing his expensive cigar.

The senior executives at Symantec must be puffing a few cigars while watching their master plan all come together. Their “incongruous activities” happen to be a series of technology acquisitions that are now fitting together nicely to make Symantec a major player in the world of endpoint virtualization.

It started in April 2007 with the acquisition of Altiris, which brought Altiris Software Virtualization Solution (SVS) Professional into Symantec’s stable. This product provided the capability to place applications and data into virtual software packages in order to provide on-demand application distribution to the desktop. Altiris also gave Symantec a wide range of other software distribution and endpoint management tools.

After that came the acquisition of Vontu, a company that specialized in the loss prevention of information regardless of where it is being stored or used.

Then Symantec completed the acquisition of AppStream in April 2008, bringing in-house the application streaming technology that was already licensed as part of Altiris SVS. AppStream contributed very fast and powerful technology to deliver the on-demand service of data and application to endpoints.

Now in early August of 2008, Symantec announced the acquisition of nSuite, whose technology delivers presentation virtualization and connection brokering. According to the press release, “connection broker technology is the key to dynamically allocating traditional and virtual computing resources like information, user profiles and applications to the endpoint regardless of device. Presentation virtualization allows users to view and interact with applications running remotely on a server, as if they are running on their local computing device.”

This is when the plan all comes together.

With all these technologies under one roof, Symantec now has the ability to allow rapid provisioning of anything from traditional desktop PCs to full virtual desktops and other devices. Symantec’s streaming and virtualization technologies dynamically build the workspace on-demand for the end user, and the management and security products ensure that the data is well protected because the endpoint device is well managed.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.